Between the Sheets

Between the Sheets: Artists’ Books Exhibition 2019

Floor Talk: Paul Uhlmann
Artist and Senior Lecturer at Edith Cowan University
2pm, Sat 7 September

Gallery East presents an exhibition of 70 works by 59 artists from 7 countries challenging the notions of the traditional book. Makers include printmakers, photographers, architects, wordsmiths, textile artists, painters, sculptors, digital artists, and for the first time, a glass artist, with both traditional and contemporary approaches to creating books of art and art of books to inspire and captivate the viewer.

34 participants are from Western Australia including recently graduated artists from Edith Cowan University. Artists' books have a universal appeal: an engagement with everyone who has held a book in his or her hand.

Books as art objects become more than containers of information, but works of art in themselves. While many artists are concerned with content, images, ideas or inventions, others use a variety of media, shapes and structures to create unique book works.

Now seen as a distinct art form, artists’ books have a growing appeal to artists, collectors, curators and the viewing public. To make a book takes many dedicated hours, a high level of craftsmanship, a love of materials and a vivid imagination. What artists’ books have in common is the energy, innovation and the ‘edge’ found in art works that inspire and captivate the viewer.

Indeed, the artist’s book is above all a physical object with which everyone can interact. This is the fourth biennial Between the Sheets: Artists’ books which Gallery East have held in Western Australia.