Artist Showcase: The Aitchverse

The latest artist showcase focuses on Cour d’Blax-Neeck’s Aitchverse creations. In this post, Cour d’Blax-Neeck’s responses to questions about their work are accompanied by their renderings of the Aitchverse, which appear in chronological order, representing several of the styles they work in.

Saint John Brown in a Constellation of Aitches

When did your interest in art/creating begin?

I had no interest in creating until my father died in November 2016. I was 45 years old and a few months later I felt an overwhelming need to create. I have Tourette Syndrome and for a time, in high school, I kept my tics manageable by redirecting my tic energy into making aitch shaped dodecagons in the margins of notebook paper. It was very satisfying to complete the circuit around the aitch and it calmed my other tics. In 2017, after 30 years, that tic, or tic management strategy, re-emerged and the aitch shaped dodecagons started pouring out again. This time they coalesced, interacted, became structural, became beings or otherwise meaningful. This was the beginning of the Aitchverse, a plane of the multiverse where the aitch shaped dodecagon is the basic building block and/or mathematical X. I have been making these renderings in various modes ever since.

What is your starting point for each piece?

I have severe idiopathic neuropathy and tendonitis in my hands, arms, and shoulders. My renderings are very eclectic stylistically because I keep changing modes due to increasing pain. I have yet to find a mode that I’ve been able to work in for more than a year or two, usually it’s a matter of months. Nonetheless, the many styles and modes prove the aitch’s dynamism as a means of conveying information and ideas.

Who or what influences your work?

The aitch shaped dodecagon, of course. There’s always an aitch element in my renderings. It’s not willy nilly, the aitches always serve a purpose for me. To be clear, I have no interest in the letter H, the aitch does not stand for anything but the geometric shape itself. It’s universal, the letter H wouldn’t likely mean anything to someone who reads a language with a non-Roman alphabet. However, any person can find meaning in the geometric shape of the dodecagon aitch, as representing something similarly shaped, seeing the mathematics represented by its angles, etc. Even aliens could understand a dodecagon aitch, I’m not so sure about a letter aitch.

What do you hope the viewer gets from your work?

I’m convinced there are people out there who will get what I’m attempting to do and see the logic. I hope to connect with these people. It’s taken over five years to make nearly 2,000 renderings from the Aitchverse and I’m ready to talk to people about the ideas. Also, looking closely at my Mind Tic Storms, small (3×5 inch) detailed renderings, can be exhausting, even for me. After looking at four or five, you kind of need a rest. Your eye doesn’t quite know where to look, you’re squinting, the images and words are coming at you from all directions–upside down, sideways, twisting, intertwining. You’re left blurry eyed, brain in a fog, excited and confused at the same time, almost hypnotized. That’s a glimpse into how I often feel at the end of a day of having to process the constant flow of random thoughts and compulsions, intrusive and otherwise, that pop into my tic mind.