One of the most beautiful books in my collection is Edge, an Artists Proof by Jack Oudyn.
The book is A5 size and contains 6 double sided leaves. It is bound along the outside edge of the cover in Japanese style. The handmade cover paper is made from grasses and plant fibre of the type that would be found in nature.
Jack went on a trip to Kati Thanda (Lake Eyre) in 2019 when the lake was in flood with historically high levels of water. He took a flight over the lake to see the scale of it and also to view it from above. This enabled him to create his personal impression in these wondrous images created with his own homemade mangrove and pomegranate inks, acrylic paint, coloured pencils, pastels,
chinagraph pencils and found maps.
Jack called the book 'Edge' as a reference to the edge of the boggy and shallow shoreline which it is impossible to approach on land. He varies the size of the dark paint on the outer edges of the pages to indicate the continually changing edges of the lake.
The pages of the book are double sided and Jack has made tabs on each spread that can be lifted from the surface image to show underlying maps of the area. He has included a little card lifter inside the front cover to facilitate this.
I find these colours and images of nature and of our country incredibly beautiful and contemplative. I can imagine every spread as a framed painting that would give enormous pleasure.
The interesting and amazing thing that struck me was that in his portrayal of our wonderful landscape from his aerial view of his experience and his mapping of the land, one is struck by certain aspects of Australian indigenous art.
In a comment on his blog he says
When you are in a little plane you see our indigenous art in nature.
They would never have seen it from the air so how did they visualise their landscape?
Yes it is a wonder of our landscape - so glad I had the chance to experience it.
You can view Jack's blog post on this book and his comment here
