Book Art

I've been mesmerised this week by the novel uses of books and paper. Defacing books is a bad thing obviously, but not when it’s put to use like this.

First of all, the artist Matthew Picton produced these four pieces depicting parts of London from paper. Working from maps of actual bomb damage of the Blitz, he scorched the paper in the exact places where the the bombs fell.

And if that isn't enough, the paper used it taken entirely from novels written about London during the war. So, for example, Waterloo consists entirely of pages taken from Full Dark House by the excellent Christopher Fowler. Cool huh? The exhibition, suitably named Urban Narratives, can be seen at the Sumarria Lunn Gallery until April 6th.

While Picton works with pages taken from books, Brian Dettmer uses the books themselves to carve the most intricate and detailed sculptures with surgical instruments. I've included a few jaw-dropping examples below, but for more information on him and his work go and visit http://karanora.posterous.com/insane-art-formed-by-carving-books-with-surgi

Cheers

Dan - Friday