Glenn Thomas (mei 2020)

On October 9th 2015, after an illness of one and a half years, I watched my wife die. There followed two years of complete despair. Eventually I began to think of making objects once again. I created a typeface in which all the letters are square.
I wanted to have a painting and a text intermingle with each other, join each other in an almost literary sensual act. It’s called A letter to P. It was a way for me to be with her once again, to make something for her, even though I was (of course) aware of the absurd mystery of the project. The letters lend themselves to having other letters inside them with a different text, as if they were pregnant, with a new letter. The text turned out to be more a poem then a letter, and created itself in one short sitting, no changes were needed:

Dearest P, Even the old dogs are howling tonight, (anxiety is victorious) Your departure has caused the trees to shed their leaves prematurely, they shiver in windy sorrow, and your whereabouts mystifies trembling stability. And Here… G

This text was inserted into the four panels I used for the painting. I later made a black and white linoleum cut of the painting, a kind of X-ray of the work exposing it’s bones so to speak, which is also shown here.
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