The Crystal Series formed part of an exhibition in 2013, entitled 'Reconstruction' at the NIROX Project Space, Johannesburg, South Africa. This particular series of works originated from my artistic practice where I sample a body of text, that carries with it emotional triggers generally understood and felt by the broader public and the transformation of the text through encryption into a visual format.The body of text was sourced from a song by Delerium, entitled 'Innocence', released in 2000. The lyrics of the song takes the listener through the singers' discovery of and the anticipation of the lonely journey through the ending of a deeply felt relationship. In the song, the singer uses the 'crystal tears' as a metaphor expressing her sorrow at the sudden realization that she has not noticed her lovers slow and systematic withdrawal from their relationship. This combined with the realization that ' It's marching through my door now, The stoney cold of lonesome' gives way to her expression of surprise and anticipation of sorrow.The sampled text that announces the poetic arrival of the sorrowful crystal tears in the person experiencing the breakup. Using this as a starting point in the creation of this work, each crystal was constructed from the letters that make up the word in the sampled text. The construction process altered the letters through the use of a verity of fonts and the construction/encryption systems to form crystals. The font and construction systems were purposefully used to hide and obscure the text, transforming the text into a form which synthesizes the crystal structures. The crystals as part of the series were placed in the same order as it would be read in the sentence structure. Through the transformation of the sampled text into the Crystal Series, these images represent the shed tears of a lover at the end of a relationship.
