‘Books …beyond words’: Artist Books Award 2011

East Gippsland Art Gallery, 2 Nicholson Street, Bairnsdale, Victoria 3875 Australia.         6 August – 3 September 2011

Books …beyond words explores the idea of books evolving beyond their conventional physical and conceptual boundaries. It includes work from all over Australia as well as from overseas including USA, France, Switzerland, UK and Germany.

A Country Reader 2 comments on western culture’s rationalist compartmentalizing of knowledge epitomized by the book of subject headings that is the basis of this work. As a reminder of natural processes and other more intuitive ways of viewing the world, I introduced waterborne pigments to its pages, allowing them to settle and leave traces as the water evaporated. The random patterning disrupts the very particular categories of knowledge listed in the book of subject headings.
 Carmel Wallace (photograph by Margund Sallowsky)