The Continuing Ellipse explores the convergence of calligraphy’s dual histories, as a vehicle for communication and as gestural abstraction, within contemporary painting practice. The project reinterprets traditional calligraphic methodology to revitalise modern painterly expression. Through a cyclical material process, handwritten poems from Bloodshot were transformed into printed text, burnt to ash, remade into ink, and re-inscribed as gestural paintings. Acts of erasure, compression, and reforming reflect ancient calligraphic principles while generating new material and conceptual outcomes. This transformation from word to mark and back again articulates a poetic dialogue between writing, material, and gesture, positioning calligraphy as a methodology for creating rather than imitating form.
