Folded Hands is a book made from work gloves and thread. Part of the Books From Things series, these gloves were sourced from a local DIY shop and then sewn together. I like that this book reflects the gesture a reader makes when a book lays open before them, and the way they fold together.
Folded Hands was shown at Vancouver Art Book Fair and Tokyo Art Book Fair.
Likewise is a concertina book made from black and white keyboard keys. This book is part of the Books From Things series. To make this book, I dismantled a keyboard and then threaded it together with cotton.
A-Z² is a series of 26 hand-sewn circular books. Each book consists of blank pages cut in the shape of a letter of the alphabet. I have always been attracted to the abstract nature of written language and typography. When I began this work, I wanted to make type concrete, somehow. I was also drawn to the paper’s blankness having so much potential. It’s pregnant with possibility. As I began working with bookbinding techniques, I realised I could expand this potential by making them circular books, obscuring the letter forms in the process.
This work was shown at ONCA in Brighton and as part of the Royal College of Art’s RCA Secret Exhibition.
Subway Origami combines the subway lines on the Tokyo Metro map with the folds in origami paper. I created it soon after moving to Tokyo, having been in awe at how collapsable space is in the city.
This painting was exhibited at Tacchi Studios, Shibuya and Clouds, Koenji in Tokyo.
Detailed images follow:
Meat is a book made from several slices of folded beef. As part of the Books From Things series, these pages were sourced from a local supermarket. I wanted to make a book using the most fundamental of physical materials.
… is a book made from dice and glue, and is part of the Books From Things series. I liked the idea of assembling a book from existing objects. My initial choice of dice was based on the pattern that the dots make, suggesting a code or language.
… was shown at Bristol Art Book Event 2022 and was sold to Bookartbookshop.
Bruno Munari, ‘An Unreadable Quadrat’ (1953)
What can a book be? How can the form of the book be used as an artwork in itself? Often published in small editions, or produced as one-of-a-kind objects, Artists’ Books came about as an alternative space to produce and/or disseminate ideas.
Generally speaking, Artists’ Books are interactive, portable, movable and easily shared but this genre is vast.
Here follows an all-too-brief selection of modern artists whom have reconfigured the mediavel invention:
Dieter Roth, ‘bok 4a’ (1961)
Lygia Clark, ‘Livro-obra’ (1964-1983)
Ed Ruscha, ‘Every building on the Sunset Strip (1966)
George Maciunas, ‘Fluxkit' (1966–67)
Augusto de Campos, Open (Abre), (1969)
Marcel Broodthaers, ‘Atlas’ (1975)
Sol Lewitt, ‘Brick Wall’ (1977)
Julije Knifer, ‘Hölderlin, Der Rhein’ (1984)
Yaacov Agam, ‘Rainbow Torah’, (1992)
Ettore Spalletti, ‘Salle de Fêtes’ (1998)
Peter Fischli and David Weiss, ‘Will happiness find me?’ (2003)
Christian Marclay, ‘Shuffle’ (2007)
Allan McCollum, ’The Book of Shapes’ (2010)
Sun Young Kang, ‘Memories Unfolded’ (2011)
Les Bicknell, ‘The Weight of Invisibility’ (2012)
Tauba Auerbach, ‘Stab/Ghost’ (2013)
Noriko Ambe, A Piece of Flat Globe Volume 34 (2013)
Valérie Buess, ‘Boycotting Its Original Content’ (2017)
Julie Johnstone, ‘The Sound of the Rain’ (2017)