I have always enjoyed experimenting with making simple artist books and included works on paper in my exhibition (notice folded paper exhibits in the two cases in the centre of the room) at Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery in 2016
I would like to re-evaluate the above in connection with PICTOPOIESIS. On the theme of navigation beginning by reminding myself of how to fold a map, thinking of it as a book form in which the whole picture is seen at once – as is the case with a painting. The Map as a book form seems to me to offer a directness different in kind to that associated with the conventional, as in page-turning, book form. Unfolding a map I find to be an extremely satisfying thing but folding it may not be so easy. I remember that I use the word unfolding (explicating) in my project working title – so, for now, I shall call this first artist book Allow me to Unfold
So, I place the map form here, below my feet, on the floor of my home and studio – the wooden tongue and groove floor shows lines, the folds of the map are lines too. This simple act of placing the folded paper on the floor, for me, connects the art element to the domestic (I live and work in the same single space). This reinforces in my mind the idea of the inseparability of Life and Art – something I experienced in Florence all those years ago – I saw a wet umbrella casually leaning against a Michelangelo Pieta (this needs an accent!) and it looked as if it were meant to be there. Florence is a living art museum in which the art and the human are inseparable – art is always human first.
Thinking of PICTOPOIESIS, I shall begin with the fundamental pictorial element of line, that already emerges just by folding the map as in the following images. Unless the map is flattened completely it also has sculptural form, has a spatial dimension. Unfolding and folding a map is a time-based act guided by the folds, the lines.
The painting is for me a way of navigating the world, the map, the journey, the line…
Write Lines on Lines on the folded map format- and draw the lines