Guido de Boer
After his graduation (HKU, Graphic Design, 2011) Guido de Boer worked for about five years as an independent graphic designer. While working he started focusing on making autonomous works, mostly large scale murals. Writings, words (text) and language are the elements of these murals, images.
I usually do handwriting with brush and ink, not painting or drawing
To Guido a letter is a contradiction, meaning that it is as well abstract as real. Abstract because letters are essentially arbitrary shapes without meaning, in different formats and dimensions. At the same time, they are a real manifestation of rules and meanings given to them.”
“I usually do handwriting with brush and ink, not painting or drawing. My work is in fact constructed from large letter shapes, written strips and repeating typographical patterns.”
In his work Guido crosses the (thin) line between applied and free art (text and image). This apparent contradiction creates most of the time an interesting and teasing tension. It wants to ask: do you see, do you understand and/or do you experience what you stand in front of?
“I think it is important that the (my) work is a window to reality. I think that art has this urgent function (of looking through) and that is why it is actually a utility of use.”