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Loading... Bookworm: The Art of Rosamond Purcellby Rosamond Purcell
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Books are man-made artifacts designed to convey information. When they are inevitably invaded by forces of nature and decay, they become suggestive of an alternative literary universe. Noted photographer and collage artist Rosamond Purcell has been exploring this universe for the past thirty years, and in this extraordinarily beautiful collection, the first retrospective of her work, her images teach us to read in a new way. Here are two conjoined volumes transformed by a nesting mouse into a heap of disrupted plot and straw; a 19th century French economics text re-interpreted by foraging termites, and many other oddities from a fertile imagination. Bookworm's 125 color reproductions are imaginative evidence of those processes that render literal meaning irrelevant. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)779.092The arts Photography, computer art, cinematography, videography Photographic images Photographs by origin of artist Collections by individual photographersLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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As Sven Birkerts notes in his introduction, Purcell cleverly juxtaposes the seemingly disparate elements of her "picture," encouraging the viewer to draw connections between previously unconnected themes and ideas. So it is that golden autumn leaves give the impression of flames, as in the cover piece, Leaves; the burnt book in Dante's Inferno somehow looks like an exotic blue-black butterfly; and the gorillas and other primates who show up with some regularity never look out of place in the "human" landscape.
I found myself unexpectedly moved by many of Purcell's pieces, which were both beautiful and grotesquely melancholy. If, as the artist maintains, all the world's an altered page, than I am grateful for the keen eyes that managed to pick out a few of those alterations, and offer them up for my examination. ( )