For writers it is the blank page, for artists it is the blank canvas but for a growing number of altered book artists the starting point for their work is the printed page.
Norwegian artist Annette Mangseth has created an impressive body of work using the pages from old books as her canvas. Mangseth, working under the banner of Carambatack Design, infuses 19th century pages with colorful scenes, reinventing age old texts with a little playful pop surrealism.
Girl on a Swing 8.2″ x 11.6″ acrylic paint, ink and marker on a printed page.
I Fly Over Rain Clouds8.2″ x 5.9 ” Acrylic paint, ink and pencil on a page from an 1851 German text
Tree 7.5″ x 10.2″ acrylic paint, ink and marker on a page of text.
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Will Ashford uses different copies and editions of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays printed between 1887 to 1927 as his jumping off point. “Like an archeologist I hunt for the words that speak to me with new meaning. Intuitively, one word at a time, they turn into a kind of haiku or philosophical poetry that I can call my own” says Ashford.
How he does it:
-The words are revealed through application of translucent colored vellums.
-Using pencil and ink new images are at times added or subtracted from the page.
-Sometimes I build new words out of the parts of other words.For example: I have a strong attraction to art about art and often choose to make art about the word “art”.
I find “art” just about everywhere.
How he does it:
-The words are revealed through application of translucent colored vellums.
-Using pencil and ink new images are at times added or subtracted from the page.
-Sometimes I build new words out of the parts of other words.For example: I have a strong attraction to art about art and often choose to make art about the word “art”.
I find “art” just about everywhere.
Thanks to Monoscope for the lead