Erwin Clauws

NOTUS Music Notation is the brainchild of Erwin Clauws.

Erwin has 40 years of experience in three fields, namely as a graphic designer-typographer, as a visual artist and as a teacher/master’s supervisor at LUCA School of Arts in Ghent, Belgium.

Graphic design and visual arts.

His expertise in graphic design is focused mainly on corporate identity and the visual communication and typography of administrative-organizational information and complex mass data. Erwin has a special interest in the visual research of forms and input fields and how to design them simply and clearly.
His expertise as a visual artist is in the practical and theoretical research of the landscape and, in particular, the ‘metaphysical landscape’ and its representatives; a secondary research topic is ‘abstract imagery versus recognition and content’; a tertiary area of research is that of the painterly properties of digital photography and professional inkjet printing. He applies the latter in monumental graphical photography and the photography of interiors as still life. In 2010 he was awarded for his visual work in the Asse Visual Arts Prize 2010. In 2011, he was nominated for the Province of East Flanders Prize for Visual Arts.
Perhaps a visit to the site with his visual work www.erwinclauws.info could offer additional insight.
He is also a regular contributor to the design collective MdSt, which focuses on creations that are hybrid blends of design, crafts, art and industry. Information about the MdSt design collective: www.mdst.be

Education.

Shortly after graduating in 1976, Erwin started a career in Higher Art Education at Sint Lucas in Ghent, now a campus of the LUCA School of Arts. He has taught many practical subjects in both applied art and fine art: graphic design, various forms of typography, photography, reprography, drawing, image research, broadening of content and experimentation in the ceramics and glass course and the guidance and supervision of graduation projects from master’s students in both applied and fine art courses.
His approach to teaching is simply ‘to develop as much as possible the specific individuality of a person through strong personal guidance and empathy with respect to the person’s background’.
For Erwin, education stands for two things. First: obtaining some kind of official certificate that makes it possible to open certain doors that would otherwise remain closed. After all, opening new doors can lead to further or different development of the individual throughout their life. Second: to acquire a holistic view of society and the arts in particular, with, again, the goal of continuing to evolve as an individual. As a group facilitator, he is known for stirring up and fostering creativity and breaking new ground, whether individually or in groups.