I haven't been great about advertising this on here, but tomorrow I have an exhibition opening of work on paper that I made from stinging nettles.
Opening Feb 14th 6-8pm
Feb 15-16th 11-5pm
Cambridge Artworks
5 Green's Road
CB4 3EF
#artexhibition #stingingnettles #handmadepaper #artistbooks
1/n
I spent 3 weeks at an artist residency this summer refining my process for turning stinging nettles into pulp, then into paper.
2/n
Nettle paper is beautiful, but not as in a crisp, white rectangle. It sprawls over the edges of the mould and deckle, contains fragments of nettle bark, and that's what makes it beautiful.
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As part of the residency, I asked folks around me to choose a page and to make something with it, broadly thinking about paper and our relationship to it. I was impressed and honoured by the creativity and care that went into the pages that people made.
4/n
I've bound the contributed pages together into a book called Gathering Pages, and it was quickly followed by a second volume. 38 pages total, 23 artists, only one page was lost in the mail.
The full book is available to browse at https://www.helencook.art/gatheringpages/
5/n
At the exhibition, opening tomorrow, I'll be showing the two volumes of Gathering Pages, as well as some other prints I made on nettle paper. There are two sets of prints, first these lino cuts of the nettle plant:
6/n
And secondly, but far more importantly to me, is the series of monoprints called Black Windows, White Bombs. Nettle paper with its unruly edges, each page unique and made from a foraged, free and plentiful resource is fundamentally anti-authoritarian. This series makes that theme more explicit by using a repeated arch shape to indicate a window, and turning it upside down to indicate a bomb.
7/n
I have arranged these shapes in various configurations and shades to comment on colonisation, white fragility, imperialism, the relentless hunger of capitalism.
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Speaking of capitalism, I've also made a pamphlet summarising everything I learned about making paper this summer: Making Paper from Stinging Nettles. £10, free shipping within the UK. The cover is beautifully riso printed, 32 pages and more than a dozen photos and drawings. DM me if you'd like one.
9/n
Most of the other work is also for sale, DM me, or visit the exhibition tomorrow and through the weekend in Cambridge.
Feb 14 6-8pm
Feb 15-16th 11-5pm
Cambridge Artworks
5 Green's Road
CB4 3EF
10/n, n=10
Helen