r-word (red)

oil on canvas
120 × 150 cm

The title of the series “Rubricating” refers to the idea of the rubricator, the medieval scribe who decorated manuscript and codices with red; as well as the title lines and initials, he would write out in red some of the important parts of the text and the individual words.

In the painting “r-word (red)” of 2011, the very title indicates that all the words in the painting, which start with the letter r would be in red (the rest in grey), while in “m(red)” of 2010, all the letter ms were red, and the rest were grey on a black ground: thanks to an intervention of this nature, these words and letters were emphasized, in other words, picked out of the textual-visual system.

(2011; from the book “Pogled iznutra. Čitati s razumijevanjem” / “View from Inside. Close Reading”, Zagreb 2017)