Boris Tellegen

Name: Boris Tellegen
Born: The Netherlands, 1968
ARTZUID edition(s): ARTZUID 2023

About Boris Tellegen

As a graffiti artist, Boris Tellegen experimented endlessly in the 1980s with creating variations on the same word. As a result, letters became more than just the spelling of a word and transformed into an object. Interpreting letters in this way also challenged Tellegen to shape letters in a different way. Partly due to his training in Industrial Design at the Technical University in Delft, he became interested in designing letters in a three-dimensional mode. He approaches words in the same way as if he were designing utensils. His work is thus preceded by an extensive process of sketching. Although Tellegen also incorporates other forms in his contemporary work, such as the stylized human figure, many of his works of art are still variations on letterforms that have arisen from built-up constructions.

Texture is what connects Tellegen’s works. This is also very clear in his paper works, where he superimposes many layers of shapes. It is a process of drawing, printing, cutting, tearing, pasting, shifting, and finally assembling. The dividing line between order and disorder and between two- and three-dimensional is wafer-thin in his oeuvre. By shifting the forms, planned coincidences arise. It is an original and experimental way of working.

Tellegen has a strong penchant for play and experimentation. He likes to test materials and shapes to see what can happen. His predilection for the playful is also evident in his toys for adults. Small objects in limited editions such as the colourful Brickwheels, which he launched in 2020 in collaboration with the Amsterdam clothing brand Patta. With these primary-coloured brick-shaped cars he created an interesting collector’s item that amounts to a crossover between toys and art.

BRB (Be right back) is the short exclamation that Boris Tellegen’s children shout at him when they are gone for a while. Elevating the abbreviation into an artwork is typical Tellegen.

Artworks at ARTZUID

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