Calligram Designers

by Ben Duarri-Screen Prince This, the first of my The Royalty Series , a portrait of the mercurial artist known as Prince . Using the lyrics of his dacefloor classic b-side to Lets Go Crazy - Erotic City, Prince at the height of his Purple Rain era circa 1984. The song was hard to single out from such a vast opus, but the reference to bringing to life a whole dark erotic personality of a city, ”funking in2 the dawn” and ”creamy thighs“ swayed it. I set out to make an image that was truly erotic only using the lyrics, face and eye contact with the viewer. I looked at lace and lingere, decorative motifs and flourishing from baroque to art-nouveau and blended it with Shakespearian calligraphy. All the letters were constructed with pen and ink and correction pen then photocopied. So far, only one edition on A2 stock printed in a tinted gold blend and purple and magenta blend has been printed along with three small Artist proof editions of seven, on coloured papers and soft col...

With this post we'll start showing the calligram art work by Ben Duarri-Screen Prince . by Ben Duarri All my work is hand drawn, mostly using dip pens, written in ink and screenprinted as a 2 colour screenprint in gold and blue or purple and maybe more colours. Calligrams stimulate both sides of the brain simultaniously creating balance and the opening of the 3rd eye. I am starting The Cult of the Calligram and I want to bring calligrams and the making of them to a new generation reared on mind supresants and imagination killers. I want to find ancient middle eastern calligrams and 20th century european calligrams and contemporary calligrams and calligrams from all time and space that ever were are and will be and gather them together and give a whole generation the tools to communicate with joy and passionate poetry that can only be achieved by creating calligrams. I have spent the last four years making and printing, making and printing and now my first series of calligrams: The...