This blog site will continue to show examples of my art works as they occur.
ANDREW NORRIS is an artist who enjoys making extraordinary books which possess all the imagination and skill of a painting or piece of sculpture... (review from What's On in London 1995)
A selection of pictures of my artist's books as a prelude to exhibitions to be held simultaneously in Zagreb and Bristol, England, to mark International Literacy Day on September 8th, 2008
Artist's Books are art works that are often, but not exclusively, in the form of a book. This book-form itself may take on a variety of shapes. They may be published in multiples, in editioned versions or as unique works.
Artist’s books, while being a convenient name for this genre of art work is, for me, only appropriate in as much as that the principle of books, to gradually reveal their content page by page or detail by detail fits all the works I make. Therefore, I consider a stick, with its text spiraling along its length, a mathematical construction that twists and turns to meet words with images or a cow-hide covered frieze of friesian cows as falling under the same ‘artist’s book’ umbrella. In common, too, these works have a tactile quality, satisfying to hold and explore with the hand.
The shape of the art-book-work is always driven by its content, and it is often that the same idea will appear in a variety of formats. Since the format will always bring something to the content, comment on it in someway, alter its context and bring out a different resonance. This is particularly true of the works broadly titled, POETree, where the same few words can occur in different forms altering the way in which these words are read, meanings understood and even the way that the objects are handled, particularly if the text is printed on leaves rather than stones.
These five small books produced in 1995 examine the way that
romantic rural imagery has been exploited in the advertising
of dairy and wheat based products. Images of a landscape
of gently rolling hills, sunsets, hedged fields and
peopled with muscular men and radiant women working the
land with their hands tap into a latent desire held by many
to 'get back to nature'.
Video presentation of a selection
of pages compiled in 2008
* * * *
Books to go on exhibition in the Gradska Knjižnica,
Zagreb City Library, on the 8th September 2008,
and simultaneously in Bristol, England, to celebrate
International Literacy Day.
