Su Blackwell

”I often work within the realm of fairy-tales and folk-lore. I began making a series of book-sculpture, cutting-out images from old books to create three-dimensional dioramas and displaying them inside wooden boxes.”

When I heard that our next project was going to be book art, the first thought was how I could pull myself together to tear apart a book. Like most people I hold book in high reverence so to take a piece of written art and change it but cutting it sounded absurd. After I look over the internet for inspiration I came across one artist that seems to have changed my view on book sculpture. Her Name is Su Blackwell. Blackwell has collaborated on a series of pop-up book art that illustrations are tagged from the theme of the book. This paper technique she uses is interesting but the materials used are nothing but the pages of the books themselves.

Some of her work is grounded to the book pages fully cemented into the spine and formed around how the story is presented; however some other works she has done have the subject liberated from the pages and forms their own medium. One example is one piece in “Hazel Tree” made recently in 2010 displaying a 3d tree made of book pages. Even the detail of the birds has a paper texture to them yet can be clearly defined as a bird. Another example is “Carnation, Rose and Jasmine Flower” where the blossoms of the flowers are made of paper yet has a flower quality to the edges and is even displayed in a glass case if thought it were a real living flower.

 

 

Some other examples Blackwell has created lately Little Red Riding Hood made in 2010.

Here again Blackwell pays close attention to detail as the trunks of trees have a texture of their own that make them seem real. The character of the wolf in the back is made the pages of the book and has an illuminated light source. This closed form that looks for figurative realism within the book pages and illustrations. The book backbone and remain pages function as a base for the 3d objects above where the trees are a singular horizontal line directed from left to right. Unlike a popup book, however, the objects cast shadows which also play character to the story, giving the background a realistic depth.



Magnolia created in 2007 is another 3d statuette that Blackwell has morphed form a book only the book has remained attached to the form itself using it as a base. The tree that has grown from the pages has great detail in its leaves and trunk.