Cour d'Blax-Neeck: The Aitchverse

February 3 - 24, 2024

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Reception: February 3 from 2-4pm. Free and open to the public.

Artist talk: February 17 from 2-3pm / Online via skype

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African American artist Cour d'Blax-Neeck will open our 2024 exhibition schedule! This will be the artists second time ever exhibiting his artwork, and the first time in Canada.

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In his own words:

“The Aitchverse is a plane of the multiverse where the aitch shaped dodecagon is a basic building block of creation or otherwise stands for the unknown (mathematical x). Aitch is not the letter H but rather the universal geometric shape of the twelve-sided dodecagon that resembles that letter. The geometry of the aitch shaped dodecagon is universal and can be understood by anyone regardless of time or place. Those who read languages without the Roman alphabet, those who cannot read at all, or even extra-terrestrial beings with no concept of human languages would all find meaning in the dodecagon aitch for its mathematics, shape, or utilitarian structure.

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The origin of The Aitchverse goes back nearly 40 years to my childhood journey with Tourette Syndrome. I developed a technique for redirecting tic energy from facial contortions, neck wrenching, and repeated blinking to scrawling aitch shaped dodecagons in the margins of my notebooks at school. It was very satisfying to complete the circuit around the aitch in thirteen moves (one of the twelve sides consists of two drawn lines instead of one) and it took the edge off my tics enough to feel at ease in class. After a couple years the aitch tic went dormant until reemerging in 2017 at the age of 45 when I felt the need to create after my father’s death. My brain wanted to make dodecagon aitches again, not meaningless scrawling, this time the aitches coalesced, interacted, became structural, became beings, became meaningful.

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The Aitchverse is all one giant work and has many elements running through it no matter the medium. Concepts such as power numbers, primordials, guardians, creatures, aitch folk, formula of aitch creation, aitch clusters, vortexes, red aitch of power, and much more. Depending on the context in each work, the aitch’s color, and placement indicates its purpose but not necessarily its meaning.

 

The Aitchverse consists of paintings, drawings, collages, and reimagined photos rendered mostly in acrylic, oil stick, oil pen, sumi ink, and ink pen primarily done on recycled materials such as paperboard (cereal and cracker boxes), posters, and old withdrawn library shelflist cards.”