Niels ‚Shoe‘ Meulman

San Francisco

After Niels ‚Shoe‘ Meulman coined the term Calligraffiti to describe his work in 2007, the Dutch artist returns to San Francisco with a new phrase and eponymous exhibition: Unism (pronounced un-ism, not u-nism). According to the designer-turned-painter, Unism incorporates all aspects of his expressionistic work:

„Unism is about the power of reversal. For example ‚turning darkness into light‘ taken from a monk’s poem that describes both the illuminated letters in medieval scriptures, as well as the wisdom they brought to the dark ages. In those days, some were trying to turn lead into gold, so it’s no coincidence that I use lots of metallic paints.

But Unism also refers to modern vocabulary in which we find many new words like ‚unlike‘, ‚unfollow‘ and ‚undo‘. I’ve been painting my signature repetitive strokes for years now. This started as a practice to get my hand, wrist, arm and body in the right flow. It became somewhat of a meditative act. The uncanny thing was that four of these strokes actually make up the letters ‚u‘ and ‚n‘. Since my graffiti days I realized that every word is also an image and that writing can be painting. I’ve been working with the word ‚unruly‘ for years, which basically is a reaction to our overly-regulated society. That ended up in the throwing of paint bombs which contrasted nicely with the grid-like fields of the repetitive strokes. It ties into the ultimate example of my reversal theory; order and chaos.“

Niels ‚Shoe‘ Meulman

White Walls

July 6 – August 10, 2013
886 Geary Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
USA

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