When an old friend of mine, Helen Bryant, handed me this book box containing an artists book
a few years ago, it was obvious it had been well handled and much loved.
Helen said she had bought it from an exhibition at the Doggett Street Gallery in Brisbane in 1994.
It had been one of her favourite possessions, and she wanted me to have it to enjoy.
She said her family would have no appreciation or understanding of it.
Helen also returned to me two early books of mine she had bought back in the mid 1990's.
She was an art teacher with little time to do her own artwork
and liked to support artists by buying their work.
Helen B died soon after that day after a long battle with breast cancer.
It is a lovely reminder of her to have one of her little treasures.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the box contained an artists book
called Containers made by a friend of mine, Jack Oudyn, back in 1993-4, before I knew him.
The book measures 15 x 8 cm. has a Japanese binding, and 25 double pages.
Jack has used a combination of photography, collage and drawing, techniques
often seen in his artwork. Some of the pages
have lift up flaps cut into the photographs to expose underlying text or images.
Here are some of my favourite pages from the book.
Jack likes to play with words and this book contains a number of examples.
Couplings and Stackings
Multiples and Twins
Well Stacked and Topless
The book juxtaposes aerial views of freestanding houses, backyards and gardens, with
stacks of shipping containers. Jack made this book about 25 years ago but it seems so
contemporary and very relevant to the present times where inner city suburbs are
being bulldozed and tall buildings of small apartments are filling the space.
Many of them are so ugly and the apartments so small, it would actually feel like
living in one of these stacked shipping containers.
formity
Hidden tiles and Tile (Hidden) (ITEL)
Well we all know the priorities of the developers and the City Councillors who
always seem to cave in and allow the developers to break a few rules and add
another floor or two above the established height limit, previously enforced,
thus maximising profits for both parties.
I plan to post about one of Jack's more recent books in my possession in the near future.
