16.3.09

Paul Elliman at TypeSHED11


Paul Elliman is an artist and a writer, who uses letters and words in their most abstract forms to create pieces of art. I’ll be honest and admit that I didn’t know of him before he presented his work and ideas but having seen him talk I feel I have missed out a bit. Years ago I got my masters in perceptual psychology, and my dissertation was on object perception. The work I did then on lanellas and typical contours was pretty much forgotten until Paul’s presentation. Typical of his work is the distillation of an object representing a letterform to a single cross-section, its silhouette it you will, and then creating a message/idea from a collection of these forms (he never uses the same form twice). Much like Build’s Objectified piece.
He further abstrated the idea of messaging in a piece where the male and female voice artists commonly heard on the metro in Barcelona gave instructions from Spain to his house in London. Very interesting stuff and a name I will not forget.

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