books

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Art

Sprawling Paper Nervous Systems Cut into Repurposed Books by Barbara Wildenboer

Barbara Wildenboer produces sculptures pieced together from delicately cut books, thin strips of paper splaying out from each book’s spine. Wildenboer’s found books are often ones containing maps, atlases, and scientific subject matter, sometimes using images from the book as central elements to her pieces. Imagery, words, and sentences become components of the larger designs, as she crafts new visual narratives from the raw material.

By producing visual metaphors, Wildenboer attempts to capture her own wonder of complex systems in nature like fractal geometry and the interconnectedness of all beings. She works across several academic disciplines to showcase how our understanding of life is often mediated through text, stretching the world of each book she manipulates outside of its own cover.

Wildenboer lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa, where she received her Masters in Fine Art from the Michaelis School of Art at the University of Cape Town in 2007. Her latest body of work, “The Lotus Eaters“, toured South Africa after opening at The Reservoir at the Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein in 2014. (via Colossal Submissions)

Art

Books, Magazines and Computer Manuals Turned Into Crystallized Sculptures by Alexis Arnold

It’s become a fairly common sight: boxes of discarded books, abandoned on the sidewalk. As the onset of digital publishing brings reading material to handheld devices, physical books have become less important. Struck by scenes of shuttered bookstores and books rendered as garbage, San Francisco-based artist Alexis Arnold embarked on her Crystallized Books project.

By combining borax crystals with weathered books, magazines and computer manuals Arnold grows them into wonderfully organic forms that become artifacts or geological specimens. “The books, frozen with crystal growth, have become… imbued with the history of time, use, and nostalgia,” says Arnold. In selecting books to turn into aesthetic, non-functional objects Arnold revealed that she tries to use found books. But she will sometimes purchase titles, or use books from her own library if she finds them conceptually appropriate. (via The Creators Project)

Art

Mushroom Book Installations by Melissa Jay Craig

(S)Edition is an installation of 99 books made to look like common Amanita Muscaria mushrooms by Chicago artist Melissa Jay Craig. The installation has been shown in a various configurations the last few years, and only once in its entirety at the Morgan Conservatory in Cleveland, Ohio back in 2010. From her statement about the installation:

Fungus is an agent of change. I’m fascinated with its myriad forms, and I love to go in search of it. I can become more excited by discovering a beautiful fungal growth than by perusing artwork ‘discovered’ for us by curators in contemporary museums. When I was a child, the first time I had the intriguing feeling that the planet carried messages (texts, if you will) for those who were curious enough to look, was when I came upon a group of Amanita Muscaria, huddled together in a dark, secret space under tall pines.

You can see more views of these fungal books on her website. (via Green Chair Press)

Art

Patience: The ‘Inception’ of Artists’ Books by Randi Parkhurst

Watch as book artist and paper maker Randi Parkhurst slowly unveils her 2007 creation Patience, a meticulously organized collection of some 20+ self-contained handmade paper books. It really pays off to not skip ahead and watch as each inconceivably smaller box is revealed. This must have taken months and months to make. (via Colossal Submissions).

Art

Twilights: Ink Paintings on Vintage Books by Ekaterina Panikanova

Artist Ekaterina Panikanova (previously) recently opened her third solo show at Sara Zarin Gallery in Rome featuring a number of ink and acrylic paintings on grids of vintage books. Reflecting the age of the books, Panikanova creates imagery suggesting aspects of memory or old snapshots commingled with illustrations of birds, antlers, baked goods, and lace. To compliment the installations she also created a number of glass and lead pieces you can see here. The exhibition, titled Crepuscoli (Twilights), runs through February 7th.

 

Design Illustration

New 360° Laser-Cut Paper Story Books by Yusuke Oono

Japanese graphic designer and architect Yusuke Oono (previously) released a trio of new laser-cut storybooks including depictions of ‘Jack in the Beanstalk’ and Mount Fuji. The books are comprised 40 images bound into a book that can be fanned out at 360° creating a narrative that can be explored from multiple angles.