Writing Notes about the Dialogue - Pieter Lategan | Silent Monumentalism

Page P5 (Dialogue)

Instead of: “What does it mean?” it becomes: “What is happening to me while I am looking at this?”
That is the difference.

Why will this be a psychological matter?

It is quiet, open, non-demanding. The nervous system can settle. You breathe slower, look longer, notice more. You think less in words and more in feeling / perception.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
19 Feb 2026, 12:58 pm
Pretoria, South Africa

Ref: p13, p4, p11, p12, p3, p4

Page P4

How form and space coexist is my unique contribution.

Why does the image do no explanation? Because then the meaning stands before the form.

For the viewer, in Silent Monumentalism, it is to exist in front of them. There is no message. The viewer meets a presence. They must sit with no decode.

This is attention. Not information.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
19 Feb 2026, 12:58 pm
Pretoria, South Africa

Ref: p13, p4, p11, p12, p3

Page P3

This makes my work different and gives people a language to enter my world.

I don’t imitate others. I have no need to force a style. That is my way how I think. This is my own internal language.

Silent Monumentalism is:

Not storytelling
Not representation
Not decoration
Not symbols

But how form and space coexist.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
19 Feb 2026, 12:58 pm
Pretoria, South Africa

Ref: p13, p4, p11, p12

Page P13 — My dialogue

My dialogue is my way of thinking.
What I see that others do not see.

My own way of questioning:
Form, space, time, existence.

How to think before there are objects.

The language of my art.

My work is not explaining an image, but how form stands and why it is strong.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
19 Feb 2026, 12:58 pm
Pretoria, South Africa

Page 12 (What is drawn / what is left open)

My work is not only what is drawn. No. It is also what is left open.

And how those two live together.

I gave my dialogue a name, and it is Silent Monumentalism.

That makes people see my intention, clarify my thinking, my work to be included in conversations.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
18 Feb 2026, 12:58 pm
Pretoria, South Africa
Ref: p13, p4, p11

Page 11 (Relationship page)

If I change or move a line, everything changes.
If the space changes, the form feels different.

This is in a relationship, not separate things.

In Silent Monumentalism, I try not to fill the page, but try to balance presence and absence.

The form stands.
The space lets it stand.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
18 Feb 2026, 12:58 pm
Pretoria, South Africa
Ref: p13, p4

Page 4 (Dialogue as an artist)

My dialogue as an artist:
My form and space is how it coexists.

Meaning the empty space around it, between it, and inside it.

How does the form sit in space? How does the space hold the form?

Coexist means they depend on each other. It does not make sense without each other.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
18 Feb 2026, 12:58 pm
Pretoria, South Africa
Ref: p13

Page P6

A pause, a resting place for attention.
A space where the viewer can project, reflect, and simply be present.
It is a place where the mind is somewhere quiet to stand.

Each person brings their own memory, mood, tension, calm, history.

It becomes a mirror.
It becomes personal, not prescribed.

Silent Monumentalism is not telling people what to think.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
16 Feb 2026, 12:58
Pretoria, South Africa
Ref: P13, P11, P12, P3, P4, P5

Page P8

But if the image is too rich or complex and holds silence, restraint, presence before meaning, does not explain itself, allows space to breathe, it still can belong to Silent Monumentalism.

So it is not noise vs restraint.

My glass image, for example, is visually rich, but can still be Silent Monumentalism if it functions as a presence, a field of attention, not a story or symbol or message.

Form and space coexist means the form is not fighting the space. The space is not just a background. They define each other.

About a monument: it is not only stone. It is also about the air around the stone.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
16 Feb 2026, 12:58
Pretoria, South Africa
Ref: P13, P4, P11, P12, P3, P4, P5, P6, P7

p9

The work is about something. It does not explain itself. It is a shape in an empty field. Large empty fields.
The emptiness becomes part of the structure.
Two simple forms apart → distance becomes the real subject.
Light passing through the light and gaps are important as the material.
Placed off centre, a strict geometric shape activates the space around it.

This is work that you stand in front of.

My note: I am not interested in explaining the image or storytelling. I am interested in the form and space existing together without instruction. It needs to be experienced, and has to reduce narrative and decoration. It is how the viewer stands with it.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
17 Feb 2026, 12:58
Pretoria, South Africa

p10

The dialogue is presence over meaning.
Structure over story. Space as an active element. The work is slow. Silence as an active element. The viewer participates.
It is not about image making to say something.

It is forms to hold something.
That something is attention, stillness, and space to breathe.

Why do people / humans need something that just exists? Most of today is noise, explanation, performance, pressure, being told what to think and feel. Something that just exists offers pause, a place where you don’t have to do anything. You are not instructed or judged.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
17 Feb 2026, 12:58 pm
Pretoria, South Africa

Ref: p13, p4, p11, p12, p3, p4, p5, p6, p7, p8, p9

p11

That space is rare. That space you find in Silent Monumentalism.
You need to practice that. You need repetition. It needs to be repeated.

What the person will experience is calmness, to be focusing, meaningful.
Silence, being held, not pushed away.
It is not about size. It is about presence.

If you start telling a story, and in the art world my inner world becomes smaller. It brings my own memory, my own mood, my own attention and calm.

I don’t tell a story.
This is no story. It is my own memory, my own mood, my own attention and calm, my own history.
Then it becomes a mirror.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
15 Feb 2026, 12:58
Pretoria, South Africa

Ref: p13, p4, p11, p12, p3, p4, p5, p6, p7, p8, p9, p10

Page 12

Silent Monumentalism is about restraint, balance, weight without shouting, strength without drama.

Presence is not volume. It is how it stands.

My language is the form is present, and I and you are present with it.
This is my language.

So it is important to know I am not manipulating emotion for engagement, selling drama, exploiting pain, or doing that. I am shifting for attention.

I make space to invite the viewer’s inner life. I don’t push. My work holds attention, stillness, tension and release, time, viewer introspection.

Silent Monumentalism
Pieter Lategan
18 Feb 2026, 12:58 pm
Pretoria, South Africa
Ref: p13, p4, p11, p12, p3, p4, p5, p6, p7, p8, p9, p10, p11

|_ 19 Feb 2026 12:58 _|