Koss​​

Asemic No. 1#

Asemic No. 2#

Asemic No. 3#

Artist’s Statement#

What Is Asemic Writing?#

This is only my unique interpretation, but asemic writing is a broad term for non-alphabetized visual expression comprised of any of the following: mark-making, color, expressive gestures – and in a range of media. It does not have specific semantic content and may fuse imagery and “character-like” gestures to form expression, but because it defies codification and literal meanings, a viewer can have their own unique experience with it. Some asemic work may align closer visually to writing systems, and some might span more abstract, visual, and/or painterly fields, while still others might be found in or constructed from everyday imagery, shadows, ripples and movement. Also, it may be produced / recorded in non-static mediums like video and animation.

About the Art#

These three pieces were all done in ink and watercolor. The mark making varies, at times resembling handwriting, perhaps extracting the expressive qualities of cursive while bypassing the coding. The red piece isolates each “character” into its own unit of expression in a screen-like grid, which I often use. The ordering, itself, defies logical interpretation as its intuitive. The multi-colored piece uses color more expressively with the asemic “writing” harkening comic-like drawing and handwriting while avoiding particularity. For me, it captures the familiarity, if not, the essence of certain memories and experiences and functions much like a lot of my abstract art. Unlike handwriting or illustration, these talk about mystery rather than generating meaning through specificity. A significant aspect of making these and other abstract work is exploring emotional memory in a pre- or post-lingual and visually “poetic” way. It’s a creative process very different from writing. They are liberated from the daily structures we take for granted in making sense of the world. They are their own universes.

About the Artist#

Koss is a mixed-race queer writer, poet and artist with work in many journals, including Diode Poetry, Midway Journal, The Pinch, Red Ogre Review, Five Points, Moonpark Review, Moist Poetry, San Pedro River Review, Petrichor, Ran Off with the Star Bassoon, Gooseberry Pie, Chiron, The Fence, South Florida Poetry Review, and many others. There work has been in many anthologies including two volumes of The Dead of Winter, Best Small Fictions, and Beyond the Frame.

Find links to their work on koss-works.com, and purchase their Lammy finalist chapbook and Diode chapbook contest winner, Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect, at Diode Editions.