WHAT can you see in a line or a series of lines and how might it spur your imagination into understanding lines on a page rather than words?
That’s a question Finglas artist Anthony Carey set about finding out when he asked 169 people at his local CDETB Training Centre to answer over a fortnight last November.
And the resultant 169 lines or pictures make up a fascinating book of linear thought.
Everyone at the centre, from students to lecturers, were asked to make their imprint on a grid.
The 169 scrawls presented make up a fascinating collection of daubs that grow on the viewer and certainly make Carey’s visual experiment worthwhile.
Here you have pictures of boxes, of bent and corroded Swastikas, doodles that look like very pointed noses, and others with a hint of the Union Jack, some looking like U-bends in toilets – (there are two nearly identical U-Bends in the grid – probably the work of some of the lads in the plumbing class at the Finglas Training Centre).
There is one that is unquestionably a swan and another a wonderful and extravagant series of loops and squares that catch and retain the eye
There is even one series of lines where the pencil artist manages to get his name – John – into his convoluted series of lines.
All in all, it’s a fascinating series of lines and Carey then puts all 169 of the contributions onto a single grid – and what do you know – the grid looks amazingly calm and connected.
The purpose of Carey’s graffiti-esque experiment was to show how connected we all are despite our differences and this book wonderfully proves this point.
Connection is available at Books Upstairs in D’Olier Street priced €15.95 and online on Amazon.