Pictured above and below are selected highlights from a recent mad dash to revisit the latest iteration of World of the Book in the dome of the State Library of Victoria one last time before the exhibition closed.
The section focusing on silhouettes included four page views from my unbound artist book, Leaves of Absence, 2017, collection: State Library of Victoria. (Images 1-2). Coincidentally, the book is also on display just a few tram stops away at Melbourne Athenaeum Library. It has been a thrill to see my work placed in this particular context, alongside works by some of the greats of silhouette art, among them, Arthur Rackham and contemporary artist, Kyoko Imazu.
Of greatest personal significance were the sections devoted to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (I was particularly taken with Lynd Ward’s illustration in the 1934 edition, pictured above) and Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, with illustrations by John Tenniel. Both authors have had considerable impact on my own work.
The following works are by Dianne Longley (Threads Drawn from the Past, Towards a Digital Future, 2005) and Angela Cavalieri, whose large-scale linocut, Luce, 2005, was inspired by a 2003 residency undertaken at the British School in Rome. The work, which references Donato Bramante’s Tempietto of San Pietro in Rome, is equally at home in the dome gallery overlooking the library’s magnificent Reading Room (final view).
The exhibition opened on 1 April, 2023 and closed on Sunday, 12 May, 2024.