Recount 1991

Curator: Valerie Jaudon’s 1991 graphic artwork "Recount" hums with the energy of Op Art, yet it also resonates with minimalist precision. The composition includes carefully plotted geometries, setting it apart as uniquely evocative. What springs to mind when you first see this artwork? Editor: Immediately, it's giving me an ancient, slightly melancholic feeling. Like looking at fragmented glyphs from a forgotten language, maybe on the walls of some temple… despite it being tagged as digital art, and undeniably abstract. The symmetry is so stark, so deliberately broken in the one column, as if a mirror shattered. Curator: A language, yes, precisely. Jaudon’s visual vocabulary, particularly in this phase of her career, feels intentionally like a code. There's this push and pull—the brain wants to decipher it, see order. Yet it never quite resolves. The black ink is heavy, bold—is it trying to recount something? It is more complex, and more profound than digital art usually has a reputation to be. Editor: It's powerful. Black and white heighten the graphic quality; the geometric shapes really hold the cultural weight. Diamonds, circles, stacked forms– there's an almost alchemical symbolism there, though it's so stripped back. Perhaps elements of balance and transformation? What would those fragmented sections on the right column symbolize, do you think? The distortion is very interesting! Curator: Maybe a warning against static structures. It's interesting that the rigid, controlled side is balanced and solid, while the slightly unhinged other side, carries such heavy emotions with it, as a reminder about things such as memory, grief, but even resilience. I find something incredibly human in it all. Perhaps "Recount" invites us to examine the stories that underpin the architecture of our own minds, our societies. It prompts us to not simply count things as they are, but remember where things came from. Editor: "Recount". What an interesting choice of title... It also implies something about not just memory, but maybe, in order to continue towards the future, we need to have some form of recollection about the past. The symbols almost hint that sometimes to evolve we may need to crack a mirror. Curator: Exactly. "Recount" isn't just a graphic, a decorative artwork, it really makes you think, feel. This piece is all about perception. This is why it invites introspection about where we find ourselves in these fractured narratives, personal, cultural, artistic even. Editor: Yes, precisely! Seeing those geometric shapes really gave a framework to examine emotional complexities...