At the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival, Keira Rathbone, a typewriter artist, gained instant popularity by creating intricate drawings using letters, numbers, and symbols. Using her manual typewriter, she conducted live art demonstrations throughout the festival, which concluded on Sunday. Rathbone showcased her artwork at the festival, featuring depictions of prominent landmarks such as the Burj Khalifa, views of the Dubai skyline, and the Al Wasl Dome in Expo City.
The creation of the Al Wasl Dome piece took her 10 hours to complete, according to Khaleej Times. Rathbone shared the story behind her artwork on Instagram, mentioning that she produced a 20x20cm piece for an exhibition at Dubai Watch Week and sold the original to the marketing manager of Expo2020 after he witnessed her typewriting skills at the event. Rathbone, who is based in London, utilizes an ancient manual typewriter she discovered in a charity store to create her art.
By arranging the typewritten characters closely, her works resemble pen-and-ink drawings from a distance, but upon closer inspection, the individual characters become visible. Her portfolio encompasses various subjects, including cityscapes, skylines, street views, portraits (including those of celebrities), nature, and even typewriters themselves. Rathbone explained her artistic process, stating that she visualizes the typewriter characters as shapes and textures, carefully selecting which characters to use based on the subject she is depicting.
Rathbone views typewriter art as a form of expression and liberation from words, despite still utilizing letters. She regards the limitations of this art form as a motivating factor for her. Her creative process is spontaneous, as she immerses herself in the scene she wishes to depict and begins typing, capturing the architectural elements, transient details, lighting, shadows, and other dynamic aspects of the environment.
While she finds portraits challenging, she doesn’t strive for photographic perfection in her work. One of her most intricate pieces showcases the intricate mechanics of a wristwatch, displaying each component in an exploded view, highlighting their intricate beauty.