Since circa 2013, I have been creating a series of artworks (mostly graphite drawings) which people voted to call philagraphs in 2023. This project was previously called ‘Postal Art / Postkard Art‘. Now it is renamed to ‘Philagraphic Art’. There are several categories of philagraphs, which I explain on this page.

The Genesis of the Concept

Postkard Art: semiperfect / quasiperfect / perfect philagraphs.

In spring 2013, I made acquaintance with a Taiwanese pen pal who was later to become my literary and artistic confident. Being artistically trained and fond of stamp / postcard collecting, she would draw me illustrated postcards every now and then. In return, I too tried to draw her something on the envelope, or on the cover of a parcel. In this exchange, I have had the idea of matching the drawings with the theme of the stamps I plan on using.

Before having this concrete plan to create some sort of philately-inspired artworks, I had only made one deliberate attempt at matching the design of the envelope with the theme of the stamps—that was on a 2012 Christmas greeting card to a Catholic friend of mine, who was named after Mary. I purposely fixed two stamps of Virgin Mary with a simple drawing of a cross that represented her faith on the envelope.

Then in circa 2015, I learned about the existence of maximum cards in philately. A maximum card is a postcard on which one places a stamp that corresponds to the theme of the postcard on the image side, then gets the stamp cancelled at a location that is also related to the theme of the stamp. Sometimes even the date of cancellation matters. For instance, one can place a stamp of Mozart on a postcard showing a portrait of Mozart and get the Salzburg postmark on Mozart’s birthday. This way all philatelic elements are in maximum concordance, hence the name ‘maximum card’.

As a part-time stamp collector, I possess many European stamps of historical figures, sometimes multiple ones for the same person. I want them to appear on the same image; a postcard is simply too small to achieve this goal. Also, I want to create unique souvenirs of my bicycle tour scheduled for summer 2019; postmark is a cheap and universal souvenir that virtually every country provides. So I decided to make drawings on 9×12 art papers, showing—whenever possible—the people and their birthplaces / residences. Then I placed the stamps on and got them cancelled at their respective hometowns during my journey.

Postkard Art: perfect philagraphs.

I named this relatively novel invention after philately and graph — the coinage that stamp collectors later voted to settle as the philagraph.

Definition and Classification

Now, I shall proceed to define several types of philagraphs:

1. philagraph = a philately-inspired artwork for which at least one stamp of corresponding theme exists (the stamp is not yet fixed on the artwork);
2. semiperfect philagraph = a philagraph on which at least one corresponding stamp is fixed;
3. quasiperfect philagraph = a semiperfect philagraph for which the stamp is cancelled but neither the location nor the date of the cancellation corresponds to the theme of the philagraph (it can be because such correspondence doesn’t exist);
4. perfect philagraph = a semiperfect philagraph on which a corresponding postmark is fixed (be it by date or by location);
5. superperfect philagraph = a perfect philagraph for which the other element of the postmark (date or location) also corresponds to the theme of the philagraph.

Gallery

Special Mention

Marriage Equality, officially complete on 20 July 2022 (the 17th anniversary of the nation-wide legalisation of same-sex marriage in Canada), is my first superperfect philagraph. The cancellation was obtained from a post office located in Montreal’s Gay Village, hence both the date and the location of the cancellation are related to the theme of the cover. The stamp fixed on the upper right corner of the cover was issued in 2018 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Canada. All the stamps in this series commemorate what are considered to be the milestones in Canada’s history.