Medium: Compressed charcoal, enamel, found objects (lists)
Sizes: Triptych each panel 1450 x 1160mm
(Private collection of the artist)

During the months of February – July 2009 the artist created a handwritten dictionary of the human body and its terminal diseases consisting of approximately 12 500 terms. During the process of making the work the artist first memorized each term and its exact spelling by  repeatedly saying it aloud after which he would write it down. Once  the entire dictionary was completed the artist covered much of it by overlaying the image of a crow in thin black satin enamel. The work acts as a tracing of a map (of the body, its anatomy or operational structure, its failures) although it seeks to exceed its confines.

Below is a close-up of the layers of text that comprise the image’s background. The text now becomes an illegible surface and may be read as a vast flock of black crows expanding as far as the eye can see (ergo the title).