Dormant Codes, 2024

Installation: ballpoint pen on paper, hand-sawed patinated copper, plywood

Finalist in the Tim Olsen Drawing Prize, Paddington, 2024

Finalist in the Kudos Emerging Artist Awards, Sydney, 2024

Exhibited at Luna Studio, Newtown, in Torsion, 2024, a group show curated by Yazmeen Meedin

Abstract marks, like undeciphered writing systems, seem charged with the potential for meaning; but this meaning is dormant, illegible, and inaccessible. Dormant Codes - a series of archaeological ballpoint pen drawings and a copper sculptural drawing - presents a speculative cypher as a tool for deciphering the ancient Greek Phaistos disc, an artefact that remains undeciphered to this day. By offering a fictional, contemporary solution to an ancient puzzle, Dormant Codes questions if the act of deciphering, decoding, and misreading can transform meaningless marks into a language, and if ancient, undeciphered writings can still transmit meaning across time.