"Typewriter Art", can you paint with a typewriter?

Today I come back to talk about a case where it is not the painting itself, the colours used, or the subject portrayed, that arouses interest. The interest, or as I like to say, the wonder, the genius, this time lies in the medium. The tool used to paint, compose, or should I say write, the picture.

Imagine walking through London, and seeing, sitting by a low wall, a young man typing. In 2023 that may be enough to cause a stir, true, but what if, as you approached this singular writer out of time, pressing keys at least twice his age, on the paper emerging with slow, noisy clicks, you saw this:

That's right, WOW! I said the same thing. What you have met is not a madman, a nostalgic writer, or a figurehead of a historical reenactment. He is James Cook, and as much as even his name smells of 18th century, he is twenty-five years old and a young artist who is enchanting the world.

James paints pictures while typing. He began this activity in 2014, inspired by the works of American Paul Smith, also a "typewriter" artist born in 1920. Over the years, as his art has expanded, James has come to collect more than 50 models of old typewriters, often given to him by his fans.

In fact, his exhibitions offer an exceptional glimpse, because the paintings do not hang on the walls, but each one emerges from its own typewriter.

James has also gone beyond the physical limit of the A4 sheet, using longer rolls of paper or composing works in vertical sections that he then glues together, in the cases of the larger paintings. Some works require more than 500,000 strokes. Five hundred thousand!

“a picture worth a thousand words” James Cook

This article will not get to 2,500, so you get an idea. An idea of the dedication and precision it takes to turn the available characters, somewhat less than what we all see on our computer keyboard, and with no possibility of changing font or size, into shadows, nuances, curves, or expressions. You have to see it up close, to realize the complexity, a concept similar to the works of Deniz Sağdiç we talked about some time ago.

Letters, numbers and a few other repeated, approached, and superimposed symbols, to make portraits, landscapes, whatever. Like having a limited palette or only a few brushes at your disposal, you have to engineer yourself to be able to achieve beauty, to catch the eye. James succeeds in this to a great extent.

I bet the next time you write an e-mail or any text, you will feel like stepping outside the limits of modern writing, to take those characters and move them, freely, wherever you want, put them on top of each other, messy. You will just go fishing for an old typewriter, you won't even have the problem of power or battery anymore, and you can write as much as you want and where you want.

Be careful not to make a mistake though, you can't do "undo" with it.

Images from: https://jamescookartwork.com/