Mary Pavlova — Conceptual Text-based Art

Honestly, I don’t pick colors just because they look nice together.
For me, color also tells a story.
While working on this piece, I tried dozens of shades of blue. Some were too bright, others didn’t fit the material. Eventually, I realized I wasn’t searching for a “beautiful blue,” but for one that creates a certain feeling.

To me, this deep blue feels like intelligence, silence, focus, and thought. It doesn’t call for attention. It leaves room for reflection.
With the beige, it was the other way around. I hardly changed its natural leather color because I love how complete it already feels. This warm beige makes me think of old books, ancient manuscripts, linen, and raw canvas. The material itself feels honest and full of history.

Everything came together only when these two colors met.
They remind me of the sea meeting a sandy shore—two worlds touching. Sometimes, I see Zaha Hadid’s buildings at night: deep blue outside, warm light glowing from within. In darkness, the city becomes quiet, and its architecture transforms. Cold forms outside, warmth and life inside—both contained in a single structure.

This contrast draws me to cities at night and to travel. Deep blue outside, warm light inside—a moment of distance and closeness together. In that balance, I find calm and clarity.
Maybe that’s why I spend so much time looking for the right palette.

I want color to do more than just decorate the work. I want it to set a mood that makes you pause, look more closely, and linger on your thoughts a bit longer.

What do you see here?
At first glance, it looks like an abstract composition. But if you spend a little more time with it, you'll notice that it's made of letters. A text that no longer looks like text.

I call it architectural calligraphy.
For this piece, I was inspired by Zaha Hadid's later architecture and paintings. From Slavic Cyrillic calligraphy, especially Vyaz, I borrowed the letterforms and began searching for an architectural language for them. I wanted to explore how letters could exist not only as symbols, but as architecture, with rhythm, direction, tension, and space.
That led me to another question.
Why should calligraphy exist only on paper? And why should a work of art be limited to canvas, oil, or acrylic?

I wanted to move beyond those familiar boundaries.
That's why I chose veg-tan leather. Its natural color reminds me of old books, ancient manuscripts, and unprimed canvas. As a material, it gives the work a physical presence that paper simply can't.
Perhaps that's what fascinates me most about art: not staying within the boundaries of different disciplines, but exploring the place where they begin to overlap. Where letters become architecture, calligraphy becomes an object, and text is experienced not only through reading, but through space.

I don’t begin with form. I start by searching.
This project became my final piece for a course on signature style and helped me document the method I use in my work.

I begin with a narrative. I write down my thoughts, sensations, and questions. I’m not trying to describe an idea, but to figure out what the idea really is. As I write, certain words stand out. They don’t form a theme, but give me a direction to follow.
Next, I don’t just draw the piece. I search for its visual language.

I make dozens of sketches, testing different directions, discarding the obvious, and returning to ideas again and again. For me, this isn’t simply about finding the right composition. It’s about discovering the form that can carry the idea.

While working, I found inspiration in two things: Zaha Hadid’s architecture and Slavic calligraphy (vyaz). I’m focused on the underlying ideas. I was exploring how letterforms could be designed like architecture.
When I start to see a direction, I move the work to a digital space and refine the composition.
Then I test it with real materials. I make paper models to see how the form works outside of the screen and its original scale.

Only after that do I move to final art.
I cut each piece by hand, paint it, assemble it, and adjust the details. At this point, I’m not searching anymore. Now I’m seeing if the idea can really exist in the physical world.
I don’t rush the shift from thinking to making. I stay in the process until the idea becomes a structure that holds meaning on its own.

╳ Medium: veg-tan leather, leather dye

Hi THERE,

I am artist exploring control and disruption within language.

Working with calligraphy as both structure and fracture, I create pieces where precision meets interference. Clean letterforms collide with distortion. Words dissolve into abstraction before re-emerging through attention.

Inspired by old Slavic scripts such as vyaz and skoropis, I reinterpret tradition through unconventional tools and gestural mark-making. My practice investigates how perception shifts when language resists immediacy.

Meaning is not delivered instantly. It is approached.

Each work exists between discipline and disruption — a boundary that invites the viewer to slow down and look again.

For the ones who notice.
Nothing obvious.

Mary Pavlova ╳ Calligraphic Artist