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.
Unique work, acrylic text on 3 oak panels
40 x 32 cms
Through Anglo-Saxon verse we ascend to the source of the English language
where words are rooted in things and full of meaning - perhaps more fully meant.
* * * * *
poem I
A wood some trees
As well as these
A well a wood
As well they would
The wood as well
As the trees
poem II
On the brow of a clough
Sits a chough on a bough
Three brothers in the rough
Take turns at the plough
A boat on the lough
Is lost in a trough
And the sough of the wind
Is more than, more than enough
poem III
The wild wind wanders
Round the cold wintry wood
Wondering whether
It would waken the weather
Winding its windy fingers
Round an old wold world
poem IV
The field leaves its yield
To the breeze in the trees
And the hedge at the edge
Yields to the leaves
In the heart of that hedge
By the edge of the wood
A fledgling sings, concealed
As a herd in the field
e ART h works XXIII - S.T.O.N.E. Sonnets #1 #2, 2002
Unique work, each 10 x 5cms, acrylic on stones
These 2 works seem to undermine the portability of this much
anthologized poetic form. Each sonnet is composed from words
compiled from the letters, S.T.O.N.E.
