Black Elk, Rocktown Scrolls

Basic Information

Title: Black Elk, Rocktown Scrolls
Artist(s): Roman Verostko
Date Created: 2006
Framed Dimensions: 34.5 x 29.5 in.
Unframed Dimensions: 27.5 x 21 in.
Medium:
Inventory ID: Verostko-2006-01

Description

signed and dated lower right in graphite

description from direct communication with the artist:
“Text quoted from Black Elk Speaks, Chapter III: The Great VisionThen I was standing on the highest mountain of them all and round that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.

The Rocktown Scrolls are named after the Pennsylvania coalfield “patch” where I grew up dreaming wondrous dreams while sliding down the ash- dumps. They present colorful algorithmic drawings accompanied with passages selected from a wide range of literature and culture. The passages are written with algorithmically generated glyphs clothing the alphabet with a unique set of linear forms. These coded glyph forms invite us to ponder the nature of language while the larger colored forms may be savored as cyberflowers floating in unbounded space.”

 

Detail images of the work

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Nested Swallows Version I

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Nested Swallow Version II

signed and dated lower right in graphite artist’s seal printed in red ink lower left description from direct communication with the artist: “The original version was water damaged while in transit. Insurance value could not replace the original so I made this version as a replacement. In this version the key brush stroke was made […]

Derivation of the Laws of the Symbols of Logic

from The Laws of the Operations of the Human Mind: An Excerpt From the Writings of George Boole (1815 – 1864). Illustrated by Roman Verostko with Alice Wagstaff assisting. printed and published by: Saint Sebastian Press, Minneapolis, 1990. description from direct communication with the artist: “Illustrations show the fron & end pieces for each copy […]