Anita George

Learning Calligraphy is like learning music; practice, practice; exact forms; exact shapes; each style different pen angles, heights, shapes. With practice you find your rhythm.

I did a one year painting/drawing class at TAFE. First lesson, I was given a stick and ink, for 1 minute sketches. What?! With a ‘what-ever’ attitude, I found fun and freedom.

I have been trying to combine these two disciplines ever since.
 

My earlier works were more about Calligraphy, now there is more a painterly technique, but you will still find words, some legible, some not.

There has always been a preconceived idea that Calligraphy is about names, weddings, certificates etc. My work did not fit into that narrow band. Over the last years Calligraphers have been pushing that into beautiful expressive art. In Warragul I found a group of artists who took my art on its face value. That was so liberating and although my art will never be a straight landscape or an abstract, but something unique, that is about my fusion.

I have had the joy of being part of the Bbaa since its start, and the privilege of being its president over 2 terms. This experience has taught me so much; gaining confidence in myself, speaking to groups, letting others do their thing and working with and in a team.

Going into the studio this year has been about revisiting works, pushing myself to go beyond my comfort zone, slowing down, trying new ideas I didn’t even know I had.

My art is my expression of a particular day, and there have been some wild, mad or sad days.

My new exhibition is about this time. Each work, something from before, but pushed into this mad uncertain world in which we find ourselves.