Italy Books: Mixed Media Paintings and Collages in Books
This body of work represents a process that I began during a 5-month stay in Italy in 1993. Prior to the trip, I constructed several handbound books with the intention of using them to make sketches and take visual notes. It became quickly apparent, however, that what I was doing was far more than making sketches, or taking notes. I was creating fully realized mixed media pieces right in the books. So I decided to continue to working this way – intentionally. I begin by binding a blank book, and then one page at a time, fill it up – working directly on each page in the already bound book.
Using an iconography of architectural remnants and fragments found among the ruins, each piece presents the viewer with an intimate look from the past to the present and back again. I begin each page by making an underpainting in gouache and tempera or watercolor. From there, a composition begins to emerge, upon which I develop a specific image with collage and oil pastels, and sometimes scraps of oil paintings. In the end each page presents its own history with multiple layers of marks, shape and color that taken together serve as a road map leading the viewer on an investigative journey from the beginning of the book to the end.
Click on any of the thumbnails to view the full image, and scroll through them all.
