Proposal Abstract

My artwork isn’t quite ‘book arts’ in the traditional sense, in that what I create are not usually books. Using the printmaking techniques of etching and mokuhanga, I make editions of works that have a book arts element in them, for example, they could be folded, cut and moulded, have delicate moving pieces, and have enclosures. My work usually features chinaware and in these newer artworks I am interested in gardens and foliage, and sometimes working them into my teaware themes.

I have been focusing recently on mokuhanga printmaking, and playing with pushing the prints further, into more complex objects, with three-dimensional elements, and a more textural outcome. As part of my collaborative printmaking project, ‘wood + paper + box’, with fellow printmakers Yoonmi Nam and Katie Baldwin, I have experimented with more complicated structures, especially on our current project ‘unfold’, in which I have been creating pieces with a folded/unfolded part to the artwork.

I would like to show these more three-dimensional pieces, alongside my flat prints, and have a chance to talk to people about them, and offer them to be handled and viewed in a more tactile way than in an exhibition, where nothing can be touched. These pieces should be experienced in a tactile way, and not just viewed from one angle. My ‘into the garden’ piece can be displayed in many ways, folded in a multitude of fashions, and when it stands, and the breeze moves it, you hopefully get an impression of a living garden. My accordion books can be viewed in the traditional linear way, or all at once, or in halves. My cut-petalled peony print can be lightly stroked, like a real flower. I would love to share these works in the open portfolio.