In 2013 I visited an exhibition in Lübeck (Germany), called „Wortkünstler/ Bildkünstler“. Works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Victor Hugo, George Sand, Hans Christian Andersen, Justinus Kerner, Paul Scheerbart, Joachim Ringelnatz, and Wilhelm Busch were on display, together with „Wort-Collagen“ by Nobelprize winner Herta Müller.

Through the presentation of more than 150 works, the exhibition wished to cast a light on double-talented artists- personalities, that excelled both in the field of writing but also in paiting and/or drawing.

I was very impressed by this exhibition, and it was right there I stumbled over the works of Justinus Kerner, a German poet, practicing physician, and medical writer, who lived from 1786 to 1862.

Kerner had developed an artistic technique, that drew its inspiration from coincidental blotches and ink stains on his writings. He called this technique „Klecksographie“. Leonardo da Vinci has described the underlying principle (Pareidolia) like this:

If you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills. You will also be able to see divers combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions of faces, and outlandish costumes, and an infinite number of things which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms.

from en.wikipedia.org

In the following months, I played with these simple techniques, and kept on developing enhancements and ameliorations to the basic principles. I used canvas and paper, nail polish and oil stick, gouache and limestone paper, I kept adding and substracting paint and structure. The works are the outcome of this occupation, and since I added a couple of printing and stamping procedures to my inimitable way of creating, I decided to call this technique Metatype.