This week’s inspiration is Hawaiian-based artist Jacqueline Rush Lee. She, along with a few other artists, inspires me to explore book sculptures. She uses a variety of techniques to conceal the nature of books, engaging us to look at these books in a different way.
“For almost a decade I have found myself drawn to the intimate, tactile, and symbolic qualities of used books. I’m interested in how these recycled books come with their own histories of use and meaning and how they serve as potent vehicles of expression. With the idea of working with them as my canvas or building block, I transform books into sculptures that explore and redefine the book as familiar object, medium, and archetypal form. By scrambling the formal arrangement of the book and transposing its material and conceptual qualities, I aim to create evocative art forms that suggest an alternative narrative.” – Jacqueline Rush Lee
The first three images are from Jacqueline’s Devotion Series. These are hand-painted sculptures made from small devotional books. I love the fluttered effect of the first two.
(Image courtesy of Jacqueline Rush Lee.)
(Image courtesy of Jacqueline Rush Lee.)
(Image courtesy of Jacqueline Rush Lee.)
In her Volumes Series, Jacqueline soaked old books in water then manipulated them into geometric shapes. These round ones depict sliced tree trunks, very indicative of the books’ origins.
(Image courtesy of Jacqueline Rush Lee.)
This one, part of her Ex Libris Series, I find very interesting. Jacqueline fired old books in a potter’s kiln at very high temperatures, and instead of burning, the pages petrified.
(Image courtesy of Jacqueline Rush Lee.)
“I am drawn to the aesthetic of a hand-worn book – say the way that a book has been taped lovingly together or one that speaks of someone having handled it for a very long time as a precious object. I am also attracted to the marginalia in books and how there is this whole other intimacy and world within books that go beyond the story and the work of the original author. And then, you see that these intimate precious objects are then dumped at a used library space and you wonder about the lives of who these people were who had owned the books.” – Jacqueline Rush Lee
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