A SELECTION OF MY ARTISTS BOOKS FROM 2007-2009
Time Travel 2009
Concertina Book with cut-out portals.
Digital prints on Fabriano Artistico paper,
Fabriano Roma cover with collaged leather.
17 x 15 .5 x 2.5 cm. 4 originals
Purchased by Michael Wardell for Artspace Mackay Artists Book Collection, Qld.
Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK
Private Collection
A story of travel in the Pyrenees and south of France searching for portals to the past.
One can experience the sense of place but communication with history, literature,
and myths of the past is in the imagination.
Undiscovered Texts 2009 and 2008
Simplified binding, Japanese paper cover with black tooling.
Sumi ink and gouache on Hahnemule paper. 19 x 19 cm.
3 original versions
Artists own collection
Abstracted texts which cannot be read as the reader does not have the shared cultural knowledge to do so making an analogy with texts of ancient civilisations.
What's for Dinner 2009
Scroll book
Photographs on Photographic paper presented as a roll of film
10 cm. high Edition of 2
Artists own collection
This scroll is a comment on the common practice of watching films or TV shows showing unpalatable stories with shocking images of war, starvation, disaster and other horrors whilst complacently eating dinner, an expression of desensitisation.
White Gloves 2009
(The Past is Always there and yet it isn't)
Adapted Flag book structure of Canson card.
Digital print and gouache paintings on Fabriano and Arches papers.
20 x 19.5 cm. 3 originals, 2 versions
Private collection, Melbourne
Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK
If only white gloves could tell the story of the artworks they've handled!
These white gloves have retained an incomplete memory and print of some past encounters.
We cannot experience the past again or ever know the full story.
Drawings, texts and paintings have been appropriated from past personal artworks and texts and juxtaposed randomly.
Skeletons 2009
Double sided concertina book of multiple Turkish Map fold pages.
Digital prints on Fabriano paper with lift up/out tabs on each page.16 x 10.5 x 4 cm.
Read between the lines to discover the truth about the skeletons in the closet or lift the tabs.
Artists own collection
Lost in a Million Dead End Streets 2008
Folded page Dome book 20 cm. diameter
Inkjet prints of drawings and text on Fabriano paper.
Edition of 6
Held in Bank St Arts Collection, Sheffield UK,
Ed Hutchins collection, USA,
Linead'arte Creative Workshop Napoli, Italy.
The structure and format reflect being lost and going round in circles, never reaching the end destination. The text reveals that the goal of the journey is not to arrive, but to always be lost, searching and learning and open to new experiences.
Title taken from a line in the song Changes by David Bowie.
Immortality 2008
Vertical hanging concertina with offset pop-up sections.
Digital prints on Fabriano paper.
Book designed to rest on the floor and reads upwards from the bottom.
28.5 x 7.5 x 5 cm. 2 metres long when hanging.
Artists own collection
A book about the mountain stages of cycling races where riders seek to gain immortality in the mountains. The book reads from the bottom up reflecting the climbing of major mountains which are listed under the pop-out sections and celebrates the glory of these remarkable feats of endurance.
The Battle Within 2007
Concertina book with inward folding inserted pages.
Inkjet prints of text, drawings, cutout and collograph on Arches paper.
2 versions, Edition of 5 and 1 Artists Proof with white PVC and Arches paper covers, and
second - two copies with black silk covers with inlaid crushed eggshell panels.
22 x 11 x 3 cm.
Held in Collections at Australian War Memorial, Canberra
State Library of Qld, Brisbane,
Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem, Sydney,
We Love Your Books archive, Northampton University UK.
Private Collection in Qld
Artists own collection
The text and images relate the effects of war on veterans returned from war service and on their families. The inward folding pages reflect an inward post-traumatic state.
Textured .txt 2007
Folded pages constructed into sculptural book
Inkjet print of ASCII computer text code on Canson paper, PVC, vellum tapes.
26.5 x 5 x 6 cm.
Held in Private collection, Melbourne
Red lips are not so Red 2007
Concertina book with inserted moving pop-ups
Fabriano Ingres paper with inkjet text.
Canvas covers handprinted with relief ink and acrylic and vellum tapes.
20 x 10 x 4 cm. AP and Edition of 3
Held in the Art Gallery of NSW Library Book Collection.
Private Collection, San Francisco, USA
Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK
Artists own collection
The origami red lips open and close with the movement of the page spread.
The open lips reveal texts which are quotes from various war poems, mainly from WW1
and all refer to the lips or mouth of the dead soldier.
Rain Chants for a Drought Stricken Land 2007
Flat box containing seven book /chants made from tally and rosary bead structures.
Arches paper, perspex, wood, PVC, vellum, ink, linen thread Canson acid free card box.
37 x 28 x 2 cm. Edition of 4
Held in the collection of the State Library of Qld, Brisbane.
Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK
The search for control of the climate and a reversal of global warming and climate change. Primitive tally and rosary bead structures have been used for each chant which together form lines of text -
blind embossed and engraved lettering, braille, morse code and ancient runes.
A Drought Document 2007
Perspex book with double pages engraved with a graph
Hand prints of leaves in relief inks on assorted papers, fishing line.
30 x 23 x 5 cm
Held in Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK
Decaying, dead, dying. curling and crumbling leaves were recorded by hand printing
then cut out and pressed between the pages of a perspex book., as a means of documenting the effect of the drought on my garden. The document is dated 4 May 2007 and lists the number of days (566) since +50 mm rainfall in the SE Qld catchment, and that the total dam levels of Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine dams stands at 19.3% capacity.
The Flower Thus Offered 2007
Half circle sculptural book with folded pages.
Arches paper, Chinese ink, PVC, rolled leather,
13.5 x 7 x 2.5 cm. Edition of 5
Held in 5 private collections
An interpretation of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's lecture Seemliness (1902). Excerpts from his lecture notes are written on the cover with pen and ink in a 19th century criss-cross fashion.
The book contains a sculpture of a stylised flower - the flower thus offered, art.
