Vesna Kittelson
Minneapolis, MN
Letters to AmeriKa
2023
Mixed medium
1 inch x 9 1/2 inch x 13 1/2 inch
Artist Statement
As an immigrant, and an artist, I have had a long-term fascination with boundaries and thresholds based on words and language.
The book, Letters to AmeriKa, is based on an ongoing, decades long imaginary conversation between me as an immigrant and our culture. This dialogue has been about everything, especially about democracy and justice for immigrants.
In 2023, during my recovery from surgeries I was taken care of by many immigrants from all over the world. Their command of the English language ranged from almost none, to extensive. I realized once again, that while I am lucky to be a naturalized citizen, I remain an immigrant as well. All issues became clarified – there was an urgent need for me as a book artist to use my skills and methods to create an artist book that would give dignity to that group of people who do not have any representation in our culture.
The artist book was created as a form of enquiry and experimentation around the processes of how to shift a spoken language into a visual artbook form. My focus was on aesthetic qualities of abstracted, mostly non readable language, letterforms known or made-up, urban hieroglyphs, with all design elements highlighting simultaneously dislocation and specificity.
My work started with deconstructing and abstracting language and thinking through and creating formations of shapes and color/value of a pencil moving across pages. I was focusing on esthetic qualities of letter forms highlighting dislocation and alienation rather than viewing complete text as the vehicle for language communication. Accumulated aesthetic was shaped through stopping and starting, through twists and turns, through layering, digital printing, mono-printing, collage, lines and letter images. With erasure I discovered hidden visual structures, mystery of words, and their poetic edge. Eventually, outside time or chronological order, I evolved my own lexicon of terms for the artist book, Letters to AmeriKa. It felt real to me.