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An artist’s canvas can be anything he or she desires in order to produce an intended effect. While some may put paint to paper, others may put razor knife to book. Yes, you read it correctly. Brilliant imagery can be created using volumes of books. By folding the pages of a book back and painstakingly carving each page one-by-one, a wondrous 3D image can be created. A number of artists put their skills to use on pages of literature.
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Brian Dettmer
Brian Dettmer has created a large amount of these sculptures from various books. Within the texts, Dettmer uses a steady hand while removing various images and text that didn’t make the cut. Pieces of book pages aren’t just removed without a strategy. Each removal leaves words and images behind giving it a sense that the sculpture is trying to communicate to the onlooker.
Su Blackwell
Although Su Blackwell does employ some of the same methods Brian does for sculpting books, she incorporates more of an origami-style of crafting. Her works feel more like a pop-up book that literally came to life. Her amazing style of creating trees from the paper are a wonder to look at while supplying a vivid symbol of how the paper was created in the first place. Using LEDs in Su’s artwork with the inclusion of vivid detail make the pages seem lifelike. Some of the pieces are reminiscent of miniature snow covered houses with lights in them people set up for the holidays.
Alexander Korzer-Robinson
While Alexander’s style is similar to Brian Dettmer, it seems that his work is more centered around actual imagery inside the book itself. While Dettmer seems to be more attracted to geometric shapes during his cuts, Alexander focuses on bringing the actual images to life. Most of his works are developed from classical books dating between the late 1800s and early 1900s. As artwork was different more than a century ago, it provides a medium that has an eery attraction for many. Although some may be heart-broken that a century old book was cut into pieces, the artwork developed from it is nothing short of amazing.
Who said that a book sculpture needs to be consistent of a single book? Guy Laramee gives the task a new meaning with incorporating several books in order to provide a vast landscape. By cutting, burning, soaking, and painting several books in a line amazingly detailed landscapes emerge. Mountain peaks, river beds, beaches and more have been crafted by Guy. An amazing piece of work that attracts many is the temple on top of a mountain peak. Words can’t really describe the intense detail that Guy has put into carving a book to the Nth degree.
Alex Queral
Although the images provided in Alex Queral’s work seem more of a sketch artist feel, the detail within them is amazing. Alex specializes in creating celebrity images within phone books. It looks as though Alex touches up the sculpture after altering the phone book with a medium to give the images detail. Not only are the images beautifully crafted within the phone books, but the detail provided in the after-care makes them seem alive. It’s an amazing spin on sculpting books.
Although some may view the destruction of a book to be a bad thing, others see it as a book becoming immortalized within the sculpture. This form of art is nothing short of an brilliant testament to a person’s patience and steady hand. It is a creative method for self-expression on a medium that isn’t normally utilized.
