Katherine Jones
High Light Bell
5th May - 30th May 2010
Private view: Tuesday 4th May 2010, 6-9pm
Katherine Jones house-like structures are a recurring motif across her prints. Whether shed or dwelling, glass-house or house-frame, friend or foe, her archetypal house shapes emerge from her installations and etchings. The prints themselves tell hybrid stories; different versions of mythical tales overlap one another as branches thicken to impenetrable forests. Subverted from their original offerings of shelter and safety, Jones’ houses are haunted shells, skeletal frames emitting an other-worldly glow, the ghost of the house itself.
This spectral subversion is carried over to Jones’ artist’s book. Opening the cover of High Light Bell, the form of the house within slowly expands, rendered solid by its delicate frame. Paradoxically opening this book does not reveal its meaning nor share hidden secrets. The core of the fragile form remains impenetrable leaving you to decifer your own narrative as you trace the veins of its opaque skin.
Katherine Jones is a fellow at the City and Guilds London Art School and was recently awarded the Northern Print Biennale Solution Group Prize.
Tree Cage From Window Etching and block print, edition of twenty-five, 2009.
Tree Cage From Balcony Etching and block print, edition of twenty-five, 2009
Roots Collograph and block print, edition of fifty, 2009. £310 unframed
High Light Bell Collograph and block print, edition of twenty-five, 2009. £450 unframed
Shingle Net Collograph and block print, edition of twenty five, 2009. £290 unframed
High Light Bell
Artist’s Book, edition of fifteen, 2010. £150
DROP-IN WORKSHOPS
Lantern Books
Sunday 16th May 2010 1-5pm
Read more..
FLASH review Redchurch Idler
High Light Bell
Bound book of etchings on japanese paper, Edition of fifteen, 2010
When opened, the contents of Katherine Jones’ High Light Bell are extremely suggestive, its tent-like or bladder structure in lieu of the book block, a rudimentary organ rather than a text to read. This detachable pop-up cunningly made from Japanese tissue, archival mount board, thread and PVA has properties that render it oxymoronic: flimsy yet tough, inflated yet see-through, protective yet suffocating. When closed its angled edges evoke a Wardian case (employed by Victorians to keep indoor ferns) that has been flatpacked; Jones’ loose etched organic forms that spread via the lantern onto the endpapers, inscribing another green memorandum.
