Shredded: The Bookworks of Jukhee Kwon

jukhee-kwon-libro-libero-2013 Libro Libero, 2013

“I destroy books…But actually my work is positive. A discarded book is a dead book. I give it new life.” – Jukhee Kwon

For artist Jukhee Kwon, a South Korean working in London, the book is where it all begins. “It’s freedom and excitement for me, trying to express what has been hidden inside the book’s closed covers. The book has its own story, its own energy.”

Kwon works only with discarded books, painstakingly and meticulously cutting hundreds of pages to create her new objects.

From La Scatola Gallery:

The artist notes a personal and cultural narrative within her work, which came after the act of making; a feeling of freedom from restraint perhaps, or a living-through of her own migratory experience illustrated in the books themselves. Kwon creates through the destructive process, transforming both the object itself and its relation to the viewer; her work is inspired by artist John Latham, who used ideas of disintegration and the book, notably changing the form of Greenberg’s Art and Culture by asking his students to chew the pages to result in a distilled liquid version.

Here’s a sampling:

Enjoy!

jukhee kwon