I was surprised recently to realize how many of my pieces were about encryption.
This came to mind while working on a pair of tinted ink drawings this summer, both of which use unreadable text (in traditional five letter telegraph code groups) as background texture.
These are unusual in my art for using a standard Roman alphabet.
I've been fascinated by obscure and invented alphabets since childhood; for the strange beauty some of them have, and for the sense of mystery they convey.
Here's one using an invented alphabet to indicate the rows of brickwork. The text describes the shopkeeper, who you can't see in the painting...
