Numbers
NUMBERS: I have been collecting images of found numbers for some fourteen years. It is difficult to remember now exactly why I started but it has become compulsive since. It party stems I think from my interest in typography. I have also long been interested in the contrast between the abstract notion of a number and its physical appearance e.g. in the form of a house number; i.e. the contrast between form and content. Numbers have a mathematical meaning and they also have a magical, symbolic, personal and emotional meaning. This collection illustrates that they also have an infinite variety in terms of their visual appearance. At one level a number is a cold, logical and anonymous thing. If we were referred to as numbers rather than by our names we would consider it to be highly impersonal and de-humanising, and yet these numbers have visual character and personality, they are not anonymous, but instead make a statement and take on a substantial visual identity and individuality that belies the literal content. These numbers have many other attributes than just their numerical value; their visual and tactile qualities supersede their nominal qualities and yet it is hard not to place them in numerical order and look for some sort of completion to the set. They may also be about the formal elements of colour, shape, space, tone, form, texture and composition but one still reads them as numbers in this sequence. The numbers here (and in my wider collection) are statements of individuality or collectivity, of taste (or lack of it), and of ownership and identity. Click on any of the numbers below to see a larger collection in my Number Galleries
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