Julie Chen is an internationally known book artist who has been publishing limited edition artists’ books under the Flying Fish Press imprint for over 30 years. Her books combine text and image with innovative book structures to create reading experiences that engage the reader in interactions that go far beyond the simple turning of a page. Her work can be found in numerous collections worldwide, including the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland, NZ. In 2009 she was a featured artist in the PBS television series Craft in America, and in the 2020 documentary film, The Bookmakers. She was the Director of the Book Art Program at Mills College in Oakland, California and held the Lovelace Family Chair in Book Art. She is currently a Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Letterpress printed using pressure printing and photopolymer plates on handmade abaca paper from the Morgan Paper Conservatory and Hahnemuhle Bugra paper.

9 x 16 x 4.5 inches when closed, opening to a full width of 41 inches.
Edition of 50 copies.

Research is a central component of my art practice. Content for my artist’s books combines material and structural research on the craft of bookmaking with cultural and personal research that informs my development of text and image. My work engages the viewer through an immersive experience of the book as art object: I consider the artist’s book as a self-performative art form which gives meaning to the reader’s experience through integrated interactions with creative writing, visual design, deliberate use of materials and innovative sculptural forms such as pages that move in unexpected ways.

The impetus to do research stems from a deep curiosity about the world around me and a desire to find meaning in everyday experiences. I find the artist’s book to be the perfect medium to meld various streams of research into a unified whole.

- Julie Chen

Letterpress printed using pressure printing wood blocks and photopolymer plates.

Box size: 10.25 x 20.625 x 2 inches.
Book size: 9.5 x 20.25 x 1.25 inches opening to a full width of 60 inches.
Edition of 100 copies.

Panorama explores the issue of climate change from an artist’s perspective, simultaneously expressing hope and helplessness in the face of this growing crisis. Opening to a full width of five feet, Panorama engulfs the reader/viewer in an experience both moving and surprising with large format pop-ups and interactive folded sections that interlace personal thought with facts indicating a more universal reality. Layered imagery captures the poignant beauty of our rapidly changing landscape.

Letterpress printed using pressure printing and photopolymer plates on handmade abaca paper from the Morgan Conservatory, and a variety of Japanese papers. The book structure is a Chinese thread book (zhen xian bao). It contains four levels of folded boxes housed in a box with a magnetic closure.

5.375 x 9.625 x 1.625 inches when closed, opening to a full width of 24.5 inches.
Edition of 30 copies.

I took my own identity for granted as a somewhat finished process until the pandemic changed almost everything about everyday life. In this new environment, could I continue to be the exact same person that I was before? Pandemic times forced me to consider my sense of self with fresh eyes and to notice how tightly the past and the present are inextricably intertwined.

Letterpress printed using pressure printing and photopolymer plates on paper from Cave Paper and La Papeterie Saint-Armand; laser cut elements.

Box: 6.75 x 11.75 x 6.625 inches.
Book object: 7 x 11 x 7 inches, opening to 11.5 x 18 inches.
Edition of 50 copies

Chrysalis is an interpretation of the complex and transformative nature of the process of grief. The piece consists of a sculptural book object housed in a box. The book object is held together by a series of magnets and can be opened by the viewer until all the panels lie in a flat plane, revealing an inner book with circular pages that can be held in the hand and read.

The unfamiliar experience of opening a sculptural form, which itself contains visual and written content, to reveal a hidden book within is meant to evoke the disorienting experience of grief in which the familiar is suddenly rendered strange by a radical change of circumstances.

Letterpress printed from photopolymer plates. Book structures are: Turkish map fold, magic wallet, flag book, rotating ring, and puzzle box.

Box: 10 x 7 x 1.75 inches.
Edition of 100 copies.

Bon Bon Mots investigates the ways in which form can influence experience. As a lifelong candy lover, I was intrigued by the idea of creating a set of books that referenced a candy box. I know from personal experience that I will eat every piece of candy in a box, even the ones I don’t like. The visual and written narratives in this set of books have outward appearances suggesting fun and whimsy but present content that is surprisingly sad. The irresistibility of the format encourages the reader to stay engaged until the last book is read.