Search: International Artists Books


Introduction |  Basic |  Guided |  Advanced |  Tips


    Full Details


Certain Light
Excerpts from the awakening

Item date(s): 2007

Suzanne Moore  - (calligraphy by)
Kate Chopin


Medium: Tosausushi and Rives paper
Pages: unpaged (46pp)
Size: 330mm
Binding: Debossed Twinrocker wrapper; linen clamshell box
Technique: Hand painted and lettered
Inscription: Signed by the artist.


Place publication: Vashon Island, WA
Publisher: Artists Book
Cat. 122-C6-4/5
Exhibition 2017; 2021

Additional notes:
Lettered on Tosa Usushi paper by Suzanne Moore. In beige drop-back box with title on the spine.

Bookseller's description: Unique Artist's Book, hand painted, lettered, and designed by Suzanne Moore, on Tosausushi and Rives papers, signed by the artist. Page size: 9 x 13-1/8 inches; 46pp. 41 of which are painted and lettered. Bound by the artist in debossed Twinrocker wrappers, housed in linen clamshell box. The artist statement tells us that A CERTAIN LIGHT is a contemporary interpretation of Kate Chopin's 1899 novel THE AWAKENING. The novel was considered "unwholesome," if not scandalous, when it first appeared. There are several plot themes in this proto-feminist novel; among them are: women as property leaving them powerless to act and, therefore, without hope, the call of "art," the demands of society on females versus the need for independence, and one woman's growing sexuality set against the backdrop of a closed community.

Kate Chopin, in a virtuosic masterpiece, equates Edna Pontellier's desire to become an artist with her self-realization as a sexual being. Her growing need for independence and the ability to act is realized against the backdrop of a seaside resort. Suzanne Moore has selected texts from THE AWAKENING that involve the main character's complex reactions and relationship to the silent, but ever-present, sea. Moore has lettered these texts on translucent paper, with the verso texts often appearing (backward) onto the rectos, with the resulting reverse slant not unlike the sea's waves. The resulting pages have an ebb and flow that is natural to the sea and ever so rare in a book. The use of the natural world by Chopin, in particular the ocean, to delineate the inner recesses of Edna Pontellier's soul is one of the subtly distinctive features of this novel. In A CERTAIN LIGHT, Moore has masterfully used painting, embossing, debossing, sewing and lettering to reinterpret the story of the confined protagonist, Edna Pontellier. Using a woman's dress as visual motif, the artist deconstructs the garment as the story progresses. This, of course, parallels Edna Pontellier's life which Chopin's narrative unravels to its tragic death by drowning. This quietly beautiful artist's book, inspired by a cornerstone of the modern feminist novel, is haunting masterpiece.

Exhibition notes:
Item 0122 - C6-4/5/6 on Booknesses: Artists' books from the Jack Ginsberg Collection. UJ Art Gallery, University of Johannesburg. 25 March to 5 May 2017



Ref: GB/11329


   


   


   



© Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts (JGCBA). All rights reserved.