Following the release of her typeface, maybe, last year, artist and stroke-survivor Eilish Briscoe has opened an exhibition on a new body of work titled I Don’t Have The Words. Based in London, Briscoe suffered a stroke during the country’s first lockdown in 2020, and during her recovery, looked to design as a way of processing her experience.

“Due to covid restrictions, many of my friends and family weren’t able to see me (and to be honest I didn’t want them to) but most of my visible recovery happened during this time,” she recalls. “Creating maybe helped me to communicate and share my experience with others, [as well as] connect me with other stroke survivors and [allow] me to build a community of people who have faced similar challenges and found solace in creativity.”

Now five years on, Briscoe’s latest exhibition at Art Practice gallery in London explores these early days of recovery, and delves into subjects such as language, meaning and communication – all of which she struggled with following the stroke. The show features Briscoe’s typeface maybe, which was created using handwriting samples from this time, a point at which dysgraphia was affecting her motor control, and by extension her written communication.

Throughout the space, shaky letterforms from the typeface are scrawled as words across walls and screens. Seemingly disjointed sentences reflect Briscoe’s thoughts and experiences, giving insight into her recovery process and the significant impact that a stroke can have on the human body.

Beyond the messaging, Briscoe is equally interested in the physical form of the letters, and says that the show is also an exploration of the “graphic and sculptural potential of letterforms when language is separated from meaning”. Despite the varying legibility of the words, they have an aesthetic quality about them that feels intimate and secretive.

Reflecting on the work, Briscoe says that designing the typeface and exhibition has been a cathartic experience: “Everything I’ve made post-stroke has served a therapeutic purpose. I might not have known it at the time, but in retrospect, I feel I’ve been able to move past and process so much through making. In the last few years I can’t believe some of the things I’ve been motivated to make, but also how differently it’s made me feel.”

I Don’t Have The Words is on show at Art Practice until August 25, with 15% of profits from the exhibition donated to the Stroke Association and Different Strokes; artpractice.studio