2020
26 copies
Signed and numbered
26 copies
Signed and numbered
29×27 cm (closed)
11.4×10.6 in. (closed)
11.4×10.6 in. (closed)
Silkscreen and embossing on paper
Coil binding
Unique hand-rubbed and hot-stamped covers
Coil binding
Unique hand-rubbed and hot-stamped covers
Raffaella della Olga (b. 1967) is an analog artist for the digital ages. “Line Up”, the project that della Olga created for Three Star Books, stresses the fact that analog and digital worlds are complementary.
The subject of the artist’s obsession for “Line Up” is Alphabet: a typeface developed by Timothy Epps and the experimental psychologist Christopher Evans in England in the late 60’s.
“Alphabet” was the result of a challenge for them to find a system that would enable early computers to recognise fonts. Working within a five×five grid, “Alphabet” was designed entirely from vertical and horizontal lines.
For Raffaella della Olga, who is instinctively attracted by geometric and/or programmatic art, Epps and Evans’s font was the perfect object of study and inspiration. Her interpretation led her— and the production team at TSB— to develop an original and free interpretation of “Alphabet” using basic silk screen printing and paper embossing to create stunning geometric trompe-l’oeils.
Page after page the twenty six letters of “Alphabet” create compositions toying with the history of both optical and abstract painting. Indirectly quoting the works of Sol Lewitt, Josef Albers and OP ART artist Bridget Riley.
“Line Up” by RdO proves again that with simple shapes and minimal means an artist can bring a viewer to new territories.
“Line Up” ‘s covers are produced by the artist using delicate and elaborate rubbings on canvas revealing coloured moiré patterns, an effect that RdO affectionates particularly.
The title “Line Up” has been inspired by the homonymous jazz piece composed by blind American pianist Lennie Tristano (1955).
This new version of “Alphabet” by Raffaella della Olga for Three Star books, is silkscreened in one color, the covers are all original rubbings making each copy of this book unique.
Having for more than a decade chosen to turn analog and work most exclusively with typewriting machine, Raffaella della Olga has with this tool found a way to write and draw her own path to abstraction. What starts as a concept (to be an “analog artist” in digital ages, to find freedom through mechanical gestures) has rapidly turn into an infinite exploration and expansion of the space of the page.
Echoing her work with the typewriting machine, she practices since a couple of years an art of deconstruction with pieces of printed fabrics that she cuts into open and vibrant grids reminding of Op Art.
The subject of the artist’s obsession for “Line Up” is Alphabet: a typeface developed by Timothy Epps and the experimental psychologist Christopher Evans in England in the late 60’s.
“Alphabet” was the result of a challenge for them to find a system that would enable early computers to recognise fonts. Working within a five×five grid, “Alphabet” was designed entirely from vertical and horizontal lines.
For Raffaella della Olga, who is instinctively attracted by geometric and/or programmatic art, Epps and Evans’s font was the perfect object of study and inspiration. Her interpretation led her— and the production team at TSB— to develop an original and free interpretation of “Alphabet” using basic silk screen printing and paper embossing to create stunning geometric trompe-l’oeils.
Page after page the twenty six letters of “Alphabet” create compositions toying with the history of both optical and abstract painting. Indirectly quoting the works of Sol Lewitt, Josef Albers and OP ART artist Bridget Riley.
“Line Up” by RdO proves again that with simple shapes and minimal means an artist can bring a viewer to new territories.
“Line Up” ‘s covers are produced by the artist using delicate and elaborate rubbings on canvas revealing coloured moiré patterns, an effect that RdO affectionates particularly.
The title “Line Up” has been inspired by the homonymous jazz piece composed by blind American pianist Lennie Tristano (1955).
This new version of “Alphabet” by Raffaella della Olga for Three Star books, is silkscreened in one color, the covers are all original rubbings making each copy of this book unique.
Having for more than a decade chosen to turn analog and work most exclusively with typewriting machine, Raffaella della Olga has with this tool found a way to write and draw her own path to abstraction. What starts as a concept (to be an “analog artist” in digital ages, to find freedom through mechanical gestures) has rapidly turn into an infinite exploration and expansion of the space of the page.
Echoing her work with the typewriting machine, she practices since a couple of years an art of deconstruction with pieces of printed fabrics that she cuts into open and vibrant grids reminding of Op Art.