David Maddrell

The fourth post showcasing the prints from my ‘Baker’s Dozen’ exhibition. Please also see news post for November 5th, 2013; exhibition details and an outline of the work.

‘Race to the Line’

‘Peering In’

‘Calm Centre’

Oh yes, of course “Where is the extra one that makes a ‘Baker’s Dozen’? Well for now, you will have to pop down to Noa’s Bakehouse to see it. It is of course in a similar vein to the 12 posted thus far and go’s by the title ‘Monster Procession’. Hope you have enjoyed this preview my new work, see you at Noa’s.

Prints are:-

The third of four posts showcasing the prints from my ‘Baker’s Dozen’ exhibition. Please also see news post for November 5th, 2013; exhibition details and an outline of the work.

‘Best Foot Forward’

‘Arrow Gem’

‘Behind the Waterfall’

Prints are:-

The second of four posts showcasing the prints from my ‘Baker’s Dozen’ exhibition. Please also see news post for November 5th, 2013; exhibition details and an outline of the work.

‘Made in Heaven’

‘Fire Ant Bridge’

‘Travelling Companions’

Prints are:-

The first of four posts showcasing the prints from my ‘Baker’s Dozen’ exhibition. Please also see news post for November 5th, 2013; exhibition details and an outline of the work.

‘Day Dream’

‘Christmas Cactus’

‘Stepping Out’

Prints are:-

* Limited edition of 1/70. Numbered and signed in pencil by artist.
* Artist emboss/chop stamped on border.
* Pigment ink on archival, acid free German etching paper.
* A4 paper size. Image fills A4 with small border for edition, title, signature and stamp.

* Price £45 + P&P  (£2 local IoM, £2 UK,  £4.50 Europe £6 RoW.)

* To order please contact [email protected]

I have a very exciting exhibition coming up at a superb venue… Noa’s Bakehouse in Douglas! Noa’s is the sourdough bakery and coffee house which is kneading up a perfect daily bake (Mon-Sat 8-4) to accompany their ever expanding repertoire of sandwiches, soups, curries, stews and chillies! The title and number of new pieces to be created for the exhibition sprang to mind with the phrase”Baker’s Dozen”.

These 13 new pieces have been created following on from the wet work printing  techniques developed in the previous ‘Carpet Pages’ exhibition. Once again the imagery is childlike and playful. Overall a positive, optimistic light prevails through the work but this is at times interwoven with dark passages familiar to all lovers of myth, folk lore and fairy tales. The important difference this time being the process of painterly combining collage and decoupage was achieved entirely in digital media.

I feel proud to be showcasing this fine art exhibition at Noa’s Bakehouse and delighted to be a part of the dynamic experience that Miles, Pippa and their vibrant team have created.

Check back over the next week as I will post some tasty images to wet the appetite for the full exhibition: 14th of Nov – 14th of Dec.

A soundtrack directly inspired by the Carpet Page art work has been created by local musician Buggane of Ballagroove Records. This piece is entitled Buggane  Cronnane. In Manx Gaelic Cronnane means drone, hum, buzz, babble, purr, whirr.

It is very apt that both the audio and visual aspects to this exhibition use the same techniques – collage/layering and sampling of found imagery.

Visitors to the exhibition at the Sayle Gallery will have the opportunity to listen to this kindred work whilst viewing the carpet page prints.

This CD released through Ballagroove Records is a limited edition run of 100 copies.

* To order please go to www.ballagroove.com

The image above shows the Carpet Pages book cover. The type face used for the title is Minion Pro, which was screen printed directly onto the red book cloth in silver metallic ink. This was then used to cover the book boards and attached to the book block.

The Carpet Pages book stood on end in order to show the pages; the book is displayed flat under normal exhibition conditions. This photograph was taken during the exhibition at the Sayle Gallery.

Carpet Pages book open on Carpet page 4 double page spread.

A Carpet Pages Little Black Book

A Carpet Pages Little Black Book (in frame)

The Carpet Pages Little Books all have their own integral frame for housing the book and mounting on a wall (please refer to photos).

They come in 4 colours Blue, Red, Yellow and Black. These colours relate  directly to the CMYK Four-Colour Process printing colours, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black/Key. CMYK is used in the imagery collaged onto the original Carpet Pages Book, on the Little Carpet Pages Books (LCPBs) actual pages and the reproductions of the Carpet Pages as prints.

To make the LCPBs pages I cut long strips from four of the Carpet Page prints which had been enlarged for this purpose. Each print gave four strips. Taking one strip from each print varied the visual content of each book. These long strips were then folded concertina style and glued at the back edge making a book block of turn-able pages.

The cover hinging mechanism was achieved using adhesive book tape. The tape is in the four colours Blue, Red, Yellow and Black thus identifying from which edition the Little Carpet Pages book is from.

The edition is in series as each book has a unique cover and pages with different sequencing making for a rarefied, individual book in an edition (1/10). Ten books per colour (Blue, Red, Yellow and Black), making 40 LCPBs in total.

Throughout the Carpet Pages development as an artist book and the LCPBs, Shinro Ohtake’s work has been a valuable reference. He makes his most direct statement to the Four-Colour Process in his Centre for Contemporary Graphic Art (CCGA) Artist Book YMCB (Yellow, Magenta, Cyanogen & Black).

Shinro Ohtake’s occasional artistic collaborator Vaughn Oliver has also made an overt CMYK reference in his ‘This Rimy River-Vaughn Oliver and v23 Graphic works 1988-1994.’ He leaves the colour test strip on the edges of this exhibition catalogue; usually these colour test strip guides are cut away as waste when the book blocks are trimmed to size.

In an indirect, tenuous way the Little Carpet Pages Books have a connection to Andrew Lang’s “Coloured” Fairy Books having fairy tale/folklore imagery and colour related covers and titles.

Carpet Pages Little Yellow Book (in frame on wall)

Carpet Pages Little Yellow Book (open)

The following quote from Edwin L. Arnold  book Gullivar of Mars leads us to an alternative view of the Carpet Pages.

…the strangest thing about that carpet was its pattern. It was threadbare enough to all conscience in places, yet the design still lived in solemn, age-wasted hues, and, as I dragged it to my stove-front and spread it out, it seemed to me that it was much like a star map done by a scribe who had lately recovered from delirium tremens as anything else. In the centre appeared a round such as might be taken for a sun, while here and there, in the field as heralds say, were lesser orbs which from their size and position could represent smaller worlds circling about it. Between these orbs were dotted lines and arrow-heads of the oldest form pointing in all directions, while all the intervening spaces were filled up with woven characters half-way in appearance between Runes and Cryptic-Sanskrit. Round the borders these characters ran into a wild maze, a perfect jungle of an alphabet through which none but a wizard could have forced a way in search of meaning.

The main references for the Carpet Pages are:-

The Book of Kells, The Work of Angels Dvd.

The art of Shinro Ohtake and the graphic design of Vaughn Oliver/v23.

Secondary references are:-

Andrew Lang’s “Coloured” Fairy Books

Edwin L. Arnold Gullivar of Mars

Clive Barker’s ‘Weave World’

Marian Bantjes ‘I Wonder’

The sixth and final set of four images showcasing the prints from my ‘Carpet Pages’ exhibition. Please see news post for February 28th, 2011 for full exhibition details and an outline of the work.

Carpet Page 21

Carpet Page 22

Prints are:-

* Limited edition of 1/10. Numbered and signed in pencil by artist.
* Artist emboss/chop stamped on border.
* Pigment ink on archival, acid free German etching paper.
* A4 paper size. Image fills A4 with small border for edition, title, signature and stamp.

* Price £55 + P&P  (£1 local IoM, £2 UK, £6 RoW.)

* To order please contact [email protected]