Waiting to Exhale: House of Smalls

I'm pleased to share that my etching Haven will feature at House of Smalls' upcoming exhibition, 'Waiting to Exhale', which opens on Saturday 16th of May.

The show will feature artwork by over 80 artists, all of whom have submitted artwork that invokes or reflects on momentary calm, as we negotiate these turbulent and uncertain times.

The exhibition runs from Saturday 16th of May until Saturday 20th of June and is open everyday except Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  Further information, including opening times, is available on the poster below.  (Please be aware that the gallery will be closed from Friday 29th May until Wednesday 3rd June inclusive) 

More information on House of Smalls can be found at www.thehouseofsmalls.com/  

But Is It A Book? A recent exhibition at the University of Chicago

The University of Chicago hosted a fantastic looking exhibition earlier this year called 'But Is It A Book?' with a selection of examples of many types of book forms from their collection:

"If you think you know all the attributes that make a book a book, turn back to the gallery door and conclude your visit to this exhibition.

If you think there might be more to the seemingly familiar and ultimately knowable book—one of the most innovative and adaptable technologies for making and sharing meaning devised by humankind—then take a moment to browse and consider the many wonderful, sometimes contradictory, and occasionally confounding aspects of the book.

But Is It a Book? is a choosable-path exhibition that invites inquiry into the nature of material text, considering in turn the attributes that signal “bookness”—format, shape, binding, pages, and text. You will see examples covering the long arc of book history and book technology, from a clay tablet made in the 3rd century BCE to audio- and e-books manifesting themselves materially the instant you press “play.” But is a clay tablet or an e-book really a book?"

(from exhibition text at https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/but-is-it-a-book/)

Two pieces of my book art - Nylmah and Vasilisa and the Witch's Fire - were featured in the exhibition, curated by Elizabeth Frengel, the university's curator of rare books:

The exhibition was given coverage in both the University of Chicago news' website and in the Chicago Tribune -

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-university-of-chicago-is-it-a-book-exhibition-20230202-cnqnoivqczcvzmjhbzzg5e5vge-story.html

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/what-makes-book-book

All photos by The University of Chicago Library

 

I was delighted to have two of my artists books included within the exhibition, and especially Nylmah and Vasilisa. Like many of the books I make, they're both designed as concertina books, but each ones takes on a new form and structure when fully opened.

But is it a Book? ran from 3rd January until 28th April 2023 and was on display at the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago.

Full information on the exhibition can be found at https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/collex/exhibits/but-is-it-a-book/

Update: A Knavish Lad at the National Building Museum

This month the Playhouse went live at the National Building Museum (see previous post from June 2022).  Scroll down for images of the installation and their newly installed stage for performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream throughout July and August 2022!

All photography by Elman Studio. Courtesy National  Building Museum.

All photography by Elman Studio. Courtesy National  Building Museum.

I'm delighted with the way the artwork looks within the installation and cannot quite believe that those etched illustrations I created are now several feet high!  It's lovely to see some of the pictures coming through on social media too and I hope visitors to the NBM enjoy looking at the artwork.

I must give thanks here to the Imaging Services at the National Library of Scotland for their digitisation of the etched illustrations in A Knavish Lad. They took my etchings - which were a mere 15cm high - and created files of them with a resolution high enough that they could be reproduced at the size you see here in these photos. 

There is little chance I'd ever have been able to get such a high resolution of those etchings with my own scanner and / or camera, so a big thanks is owed to them for their help here.

The Playhouse is on until Sunday 28th August 2022 at the National Building Museum, Washington D.C.  Further information is available at https://www.nbm.org/national-building-museum-and-folder-shakespeare-library-bring-the-wonders-of-shakespeare-to-the-great-hall/

Lockdown Home Show

After a difficult year of events being cancelled and places being closed, I decided to create a temporary exhibition space at home and share it online.

Seeing as there won't be any galleries open or art fairs happening for a long time yet, I thought that making and sharing something like this would be the next best thing and would make for an interesting alternative.

Much of the work will be familiar to those of you who've been following my work for a while, but there are a couple of unseen works in progress too!

The final result was a 10 minute video and can be accessed below and at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC7g8-R_syU

 

I hope you enjoy the short video! 

Any comments or feedback in general is welcome.

 

RSA Annual Exhibition 2020

Fighting the Monster (above) was accepted for inclusion in this year's Annual Exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy, which I was delighted to learn about.  However due to the current global pandemic, the exhibition has been moved online and will run until the end May 2020.

It's a pity not to be able to visit the exhibition space itself and see everyone's work on display, so for now we all view the artwork from the comfort (and safety) of our own sofas.

Visit the RSA Annual Exhibition website

Review in Scotsman can be found here at https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/art/art-review-rsa-annual-exhibition-2020-online-2543135

Fighting the Monster: Frankenstein 2018 Book Art Exhibition

Close up of screen-printed and lasercut pages

Liverpool Book Art's third major exhibition of book art will open in May 2018 and will celebrate another significant literary anniversary: the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley's book Frankenstein.

I'm delighted to say that my proposal for this exhibition was successful and over the past few months I have designed and made a new book for it entitled Fighting the Monster.

I wanted to create a book which considered the way in which ‘monsters’ are created online. Our choice in what we like, what we dislike, what we share, what we publicly comment on builds up a larger picture of who we are to others online. It’s also something that is reflected straight back at us with the virtual voices and opinions we surround ourselves with. Online debate seems to create a virtual army of those For and those Against, where friends are removed and followers unfollowed if their opinions or beliefs are out of synch with our own. I believe that this is an area from where some of the most challenging monsters of our day can appear, monsters we didn’t think existed, who get up and walk away from their computer screen to attack someone in real life.

Fighting the Monster is now available to purchase through my online shop in the link above - £380 plus postage

Photos and a short video are below...

Thanks for looking!

Work in progress 

Short video of Fighting The Monster - 

A walk through A Midsummer Night's Dream

For those who didn't get to see the largest concertina book I've ever created at McNaughtan's Bookshop and Gallery in Edinburgh last summer, here's a short one minute video of it from beginning to end:

A higher resolution of this video is available at https://vimeo.com/202385480.

Only seven copies of this book will be made (eight including the display copy featured in this video).

Each copy in the edition is priced at £1,950.

There are just five copies are currently available.  If you are interested in purchasing one of them, or would like to ask any questions about it, please contact me through http://joannarobsonillustration.bigcartel.com/contact

I hope you enjoy this short video and thank you for looking!

Etching collage

Below are some photos from an experiment I did with a couple of unsellable etchings I had to remove from an edition.  Taking a scalpel to my etchings always feels unusually cathartic, though I'm still not sure why.  Perhaps the etching process can remove the spontaneity of image making, which chopping up helps to restore.