Have you ever seen that creepy movie where the characters in a book come to life? Sue Blackwell must have been the inspiration for that film. Using a scalpel, Sue cuts and glues the pages of books to create these eerie miniature scenes.
“Paper has been used for communication since its invention; either between humans or in an attempt to communicate with the spirit world. I employ this delicate, accessible medium and use irreversible, destructive processes to reflect on the precariousness of the world we inhabit and the fragility of our life, dreams and ambitions.
It is the delicacy, the slight feeling of claustrophobia, as if these characters, the landscape have been trapped inside the book all this time and are now suddenly released. A number of the compositions have an urgency about them, the choices made for the cut-out people from the illustrations seem to lean towards people on their way somewhere, about to discover something, or perhaps escaping from something. And the landscapes speak of a bleak mystery, a rising, an awareness of the air.” – Su Blackwell.
If you find yourself in London, you can catch her sculptures as part of “The 8th East Wing Collection” at the Courtauld Institute in London until July 2009.
