Artists Books Portfolio
My artists books deal with a variety of subjects but mainly explore the relationship between the book and the reader. Using the book as a place to explore language, image and time.
Work held in: National Art Library (V&A Museum, London), Museum Meermanno (Amsterdam, Holand), Saison Poetry Library (London), Centre international de poesie (Marseille, France), Scottish Poetry Library (Edinburgh), National Museum of Wales (Cardiff), Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collection, Museum of Fine Art (Boston, USA), University of California (San Diego, USA), Chelsea College of Art & Design Library Artists’ Books Collection (London), Center for Fine Print Research, (UWE, Bristol), Tate Library Artist’s Books Collection (London).
For enquires please email: mail@georgecullen.com
Mist
Digital printed exposed spine binding, with movable flaps throughout, 2018
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This book explores the effects of mist on the landscape.
Pages are overlaid, revealing and hiding the land as the mist rises and falls.
Exposed On The Surface Or Underlying The Soil
Three colour risograph and letterpress book with exposed stitching in hand dyed thread, 2018
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This book was inspired by the textures of the changing rocks along a costal walk in Cornwall.
Three colour risograph images sit alongside letterpressed pages.
Letterpress ornaments echo the textures and shapes seen in the images.
a point moving out as if from a centre
A concertina risograph print and a letterpressed sheet bound together, 2016
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An exploration into the radiating book. The book when open stretches away from itself. Some points are closer, some points are further apart. These points moving away and towards each other cause a ripple effect throughout the book. Like a drop of water that radiates out in equal directions from it's centre.
Move into the Future
A modified Japanese stitched letterpress book with letterpress cover, 2016
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There is a certain time based pace within the book. The moment when you turn from one page to the next, draws you into the future. The recto pages are printed with an 'I'. A word that places you and halts you, just at the edge of the page. While on the other side are verbs for time. I will be going, I had gone. These reiterating the journey you have or will take through the book.
Space Filling Form
A bound risograph book and a letterpress sheet held together on a foil blocked board with an elastic band, 2016
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I was struck by the transformative space filling nature of the book. Once opened it can stretch in all directions. Filling the 3D space much more effectively than the 2D one. I likened this idea of expansion and growth from a centre, to that of a spider plant. The plant stretches out 360° from its base in the ground. Turning pages in a book stretches the pages 360° from its base on the table or your hand. Reaching in and reaching out in equal measure. Moving in and out. Reaching around and within.
Connected Space - Walk Through
two connected bound books held together by a foiled band, 2015
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These two books exist in the spaces around the body. A walk was taken through a woods. A view of the sky and a view of the floor was documented in separate books. These books are then interleaved with no human form represented. Suggesting that the connecting form is the reader. It is recapturing the feeling of moving though a space, where you are overwhelmed by a strong visual stimulus and not knowing where to look.
away back
letterpressed, digitally printed and risograph book spiral bound, 2015
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‘the assessment of ‘going away’ and ‘coming back is related to a specific point of reference. But the point of reference changes according to the level of observation.’ Bollnow. O, Human Space, Hyphen Press, 2011, pg. 47
This book is an exploration of the words ‘away’ and ‘back’. These two words suggest a place. A place that we can move away from and back to. But they also distinguish a centre, one that moves out in all directions and draws in from all directions.
The images reiterate the movement and action of the hand. A wave crashing on the shore and pulling back, a deck of cards being dealt. These represent movements that have a counterpoint. A wave moves up the shore and back down. A page rises and falls as it turns. A deck of cards is dealt onto a table, the cards flipping to reveal the other side. A page rises and falls as it turns. These motions are represented as an abstraction to what is actually happening with the book, the movement in terms of the going away and coming back, almost in a meditative sense - the hand moving, moving movement. The textual explorations can be read overlaid by imagery or on their own. The text acts as the point of exit from the room. Where the images represent the object, the text represents the object in relation to its surroundings. ‘the room, the book, the hand, the eye, the mind, the eye, the hand, the book, the room’. Across the pages written with relation to the space of the page will be texts that act to pull you through the object. ‘a continuous thought cuts across the space’.
Point of Contact
two concertina sheets held together with a belly band, 2014
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The book is given anthropomorphic qualities. The point in which you come into contact with the book is expressed through a gaze and a kiss. The centre spread which looks out upon you. The edge of the page that touches you. As you turn the page the edge of the book kisses your finger, it reiterates the intimate act of reading.
the mind follows
perfect bound book wrapped in a printed semi-transparent wrapper, 2014
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With this work I am exploring the hand’s relation to the book. The book is a performative notion, where holding it is the catalyst for reading. This book has no text. It’s a contemplative space that stretches you through its pages. Where your hands go your mind follows and vice-versa, almost as if to give the action of reading dominance over the author’s content.
turn towards torn away
a stab bound flip book with printed belly band, 2013
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Held in a glance, the eye.
We moved towards, turned into.
Met at a point, then departed.
The movement of the pages are followed by a turn of the head. The pages turn as the head turns, a parallel between the angle of the page and the movement within the book. The whole book surveyed by one look.
Between Decision and Action
three section sewn digitally printed books held together with a belly band, 2013
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This work was created as part of the codex: between this and that project.
Three books addressing that moment between the decision and the action.
The fist "INTO OUT OF" explores the book as a catalyst to promote ideas. As you flip the book an image of a book animates, the pages turn. As you move through another image of a pile of papers gets blown around. The idea being that in reading you activate thoughts that exist outside of the book. The action and reaction to the process. An animation of the books pages can be seen here: + into / out of
The second book "CONVECTION WITHIN THE BOOK STRUCTURE" is a thought on the action that the book goes through when you read it. Imagine a convection current, hot air rises and cools then falls and is heated again. If this is applied to the book as the page rises it heats and as it falls it cools. Constantly though the book you get these circular motions of movement.
The third "TO EVERY ACTION THERE IS A REACTION" is about the design of the book. The pages hinged at the spine promote only one action from you to turn them. 'The book hinged here echoes the movement before it. A reflection on its axis, forced by design'. An animation of the books pages can be seen here: + to every action there is a reaction
here the room passes
Three pamphlet sewn books held by a rubber band, 2012
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This book documents work from the 'Brief Permanence' exhibition in Cambridge.
Step into the room. Your eye caught in the text. The text read. The mind shifts. From the room to the page and almost instantly back again. As if the two spaces run parallel to each other. Spacial awareness and information fight for the minds attention. In one moment you are on the page and in the next you are in the room.
The book builds a closed space for reading. Two covers, the spine and you create a container for the transmission of information. How large is this space before it becomes the room. The open book can only hold you for so long and at a certain distance before you are made aware of the space. Can the open book command a distance? There is no distance when reading. The writing exists in your mind, it closes space. How far is your mind away from this information?
the room, the book, a page (a thought gaining form / a thought loosing form)
a dos-à-dos bound book, 2012
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This is a continuous book like a möbius strip. It places the book within the room in relation to your interaction with it.
the room the book
the room a page
the room a hand
the room an eye
the room the mind
the book a page
the book a hand
the book an eye
the book the mind
a page a hand
a page an eye
a page the mind
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the mind an eye
the mind a hand
the mind a page
the mind a book
the mind the room
an eye a hand
an eye a page
an eye the book
an eye the room
a hand a page
a hand the book
a hand the room
here in the room, within the page
collection of books held in a printed envelope, 2012
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A collection of my work. It is a record of things that have mainly come out of the MA course. It’s a reference for me and contains elements of the ideas that I was working on. It is almost an end point for finishing my work at camberwell. A hurdle almost necessary to cross in order to produce more work. I didn’t want to be floating endlessly in the ideas from camberwell. Though they have shaped my practice today they do not dictate it. I see this as inspiration for the next body of work. To draw upon but not reproduce.
action-language-book-space
a folded pamphlet book, 2011
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This book formed part of my MA final project and outlined my thoughts.
Language touches books, which in turn touch surfaces. These surfaces form a space. These surfaces carry the message of the book. To the surface of the eye. To the surface of the brain. Even the surface of the table lends its meaning of place to a book and in turn our reading of it. My aim is to allow the book a site to speak ideas through the strength of space. The book has a space to offer and to understand this space we have to think of the book as a site in and outside of itself. A space beyond the book, which is also the book. In which we can explore or revaluate the book in relation to ourselves.
stagnated reading
digitally printed pamphlet stitched book, 2011
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The book has printed in it a small image and sentence that runs into the spine on every page. Only half of the image and sentence can be seen. I was trying to interrupt the natural flow of the book by forcing you to stop. The space within the pages becomes stagnant.
through defined depths
concertina book with pages of different depths in a hard board cover, 2011
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The book is an exploration into reading or rather the reader's relationship with the book. The book is essentially an object that draws upon two spaces. The inner space of the book and the outer space that consists of everything that is not on the page. In reading you navigate these two spaces continually. Entering into the book only to come out again at the turn of a page. The aim of the book here is to draw you in through the reading of it, only to be pulled back out again by the physical nature of the page. One word on each page defines the rhythm and the depth you read into. Shorter words being quicker to read don't have such a draw into the book whereas longer words do. What becomes apparent is a sense of pace when reading dictated partially by the physical nature of the page but essentially by the language itself
I am parallel to the text
twelve page pamphlet sewn book of letterpress and printed pages, 2011
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Where do you sit in relation to the book? Cut off from the world around you or in direct confrontation with it? The book contains an image of a face. Sat at that point in the spine where all the pages merge. The book becomes about symmetry but also about your relationship with it. Do you loose yourself in a book? The book presents a parallel space. A space that is parallel to us as a reader.
BACK TO BACK THEY FACED EACH OTHER
perfect bound book with printed pages and letterpress covers, 2011
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you/here
concertina and pamphlet sewn book, 2011
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'you pass through the centre of the spine and then you realise you are here'
The act of reading draws you through the book.
radar | civic | level | stats
pamphlet sewn book with laser cut pages, 2010
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Laser cut palindromes sit in the center of the book. The page becomes a palindrome. Turning the pages is realised in the irregularity of overlapped letters.
A film of the book can be seen here:+ the previous page is an exact replica
palindrome study
hardback concertina book with mirrored and printed pages, 2010
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Experiment in the act of reading. I have become quite fascinated with the palindrome as form. The idea of center. A symmetrical word revealed out of a word with a symmetrical spelling. The idea of the palindrome as a word that reads the same way is explored in the reflection. The word that is reflected back often has no relation to the word that its trying to show. What you get is the physical embodiment of the palindrome where it has discarded its relation with the meaning of the original word. Its subverting the structure of language. Creating words that embody meaning greater than the word itself
two identical pages in a dialogue
four, four page A5 pamphlet sewn books with coloured covers held in a folio, 2010
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The book as a systematic action. Where do you sit as a reader? In that point at the centre? The symmetrical spread reiterates the action of the page. The rule bound nature of reading made apparent by the palindrome quality of the pages.
false flag
box containing two pamphlet sewn books and a folded handmade flag, 2010
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The flag as a centre of action or the centre icon has both message and no message. The flag itself lacking clarity is falsified. The flag becomes useless. Does its ambiguity carry all messages? In its ambiguity does your relationship with the object change? Are you left in limbo stuck between meaning and uncertainty. Stuck between a familiar icon and an uncertain message. Where do you sit as a reader?
What I wanted to explore with the flag is the idea of icon. Not only has the flag written on it a indecipherable text it itself is indecipherable. It contains all the ideals of the flag. It can be waved around. But its meaning drops dead. Is the icon enough to warrant any meaning from it. Is in becoming so encrypted and unsure of itself leave it open to any meaning. Is it trying to be something its not? Does it void itself though its own ambiguity?
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