Anneke Baeten was born in Belgium, now residing in Sydney. Educated in Arts and Music, and following a 20 year career in publishing, she is currently working on various series of asemic work. Anneke’s has been published in many art magazines, blogs and online galleries. This year her work has been part of several group exhibitions: Malta asemic writing exhibitions, Brussels Contemporary Art Museum as part of the Brussels International Underground Poetry Festival and Brazil’s 23rd Poetry Convention. This exhibition with Curve Gallery is her first solo exhibition in Australia.

The Criminal Writing series portrays a journey through a criminal trial and includes processes, contracts, psychopath lawyers, a mysterious trial, confused confessions, criminal landscapes, some self-important judges and ultimately a verdict. The journey was treacherous and bloody and the exhibition tells this convoluted story through the textured handmade paper that demands its own attention, adding to the scribbles, lines and symbols to become part of the content and literal landscape.

The use of asemic writing is such that the works appears to have semantic meaning, which is also suggested by the imagery and titles. Closer inspection however shows this is deceptive – the content is as convoluted and confusing as the jargon and language of the legal profession itself. The work challenges the viewer to get closer, to try and unravel the mystery, to look deeper and perhaps find their own meaning within the organised chaos.