Paintings & Drawings2017produced

THE BLACK BOOKS

Bound books of black paper, drawn page by page with bleach

Two large circles overlapping a wireframe cube in the upper half, drawn in bright gold, with a small figure standing beneath them on dark ground and a tree at the right

A stepped ziggurat drawn in bleach above a dotted dome, a fringe of vertical strokes beneath it and a woven gold band along the foot of the page, with four dots joined by lines overhead — A stepped thing, over a dome full of stars.

A standing figure drawn as a tangle of fine bleach lines, rising from behind an open cube in perspective, with a small framed lens shape at the upper left — The figure, and the box it will not leave.

A diagonal chain of gold dots and lines balanced on a small triangle like a pair of scales, with four woven bands of erased text below — A weighing, and four lines that never became words.

A thick gold border of bleach eating inward from every edge of the page, enclosing two nested woven rectangles and a few pale torn marks at the centre — The bleach came in from the edges and kept going.

A boxed row of invented glyphs at the upper right, a constellation of dots and lines across the middle, and a wireframe box at the foot holding more dots joined by lines — Two boxes, and a sky between them.

A starry field above a horizon, with a figure in a wide-brimmed hat standing below it facing the viewer, rays fanning out behind, the page edges bleached to gold — Whoever this is, he is always wearing the hat.

A single loose gold squiggle like a signature, a small cross, scattered dots and two woven bands at the foot of an otherwise empty black page — One gesture, then the hand stopped.

A dense spiral nest of gold at the upper left, a line dropping from it to a pale bleached blot, three woven bands at the lower right and a small constellation at the foot — A nest, and something spilled beneath it.

A field of fine gold specks like falling snow, a small figure in a hat standing on a rock at the lower left among other rocks, and a bright spiral moon at the upper right — Standing on a rock, under everything.

Handwritten numerals along the top edge, three woven bands, a framed panel holding a small disc, and a curling line with a triangular sail near the foot — The page is numbered, as if it were evidence.

Hardbound books whose every page is black paper, worked with sodium hypochlorite until the colour lifts out of it. One is cased in red cloth. They open flat, and they were photographed a leaf at a time, so every page stands on its own here instead of sharing a frame with its neighbour.

A long looping line falling from the upper left down to a small spiral, a framed panel at the right holding a tiny landscape, a block of vertical hatching and a woven band at the foot — A line takes the whole page to arrive.

A constellation of gold dots joined by straight lines, a spiral disc at the upper right, a row of digits above it, and a band of wavy parallel lines along the bottom — A chart of something, drawn by someone who was not measuring.

A page bleached almost entirely to a sepia cloud, with a single dark disc surviving at the centre holding a few small pale marks — The bleach took the whole page but one eye.

A pouring gold form at the left like a figure emptying itself, a ringed moon at the upper right, horizontal ribbons of bleach, and a boxed grid of invented script filling the lower third — Three ruled rows of a language he made up.

A soft ring of bleach like a smoke ring, tethered by a curved line to a dotted collar, with a small cross, scattered dots and a row of short bars along the bottom — A ring, held on a string.

A great mottled wave sweeping down from the upper right of the page, with three pale discs floating clear of it, each tethered to a small square by a fine line — The wave, and three things that got out.

A tall pale spire rising from a low horizon, with a grid of dots joined into a constellation above it and a boxed panel of script bars at the upper right — Something is going up, very slowly.

A geyser of bleach rising from a horizon of grass, a chain of ringed dots and sound-wave arcs above, boxed panels to either side, and below the horizon a figure in a wide hat standing with rays behind him — He is standing under it, watching it happen.

A constellation of gold dots and lines with a small planet and a grid of dots, a dense band of wavy horizontal lines below, and a long tapered baton lying across the foot — A sky, its noise, and one solid object.

Small tethered boxes floating in the upper half, a funnel of stacked arcs narrowing to a thread, and at the foot a spire rising from a serrated horizon beside a figure standing in a doorway — A door, a horizon, and a thin bright thing between them.

A constellation of dots and lines with small pennants, a long curving thread, a bold cross with a number written beside it, and a deep ruled box of vertical strokes across the foot — The cross is where something was, or will be.

The vocabulary is the same one that runs through the caustic sheets, but a book lets it behave differently. A constellation started on one page finishes on the next. A pour runs off the bottom of one leaf and picks up on the one after. Some pages are almost empty, three dots and a ruled line, and the one after it is a solid gold web with nothing left of the black.

A small figure seated on a woven box at the upper left, with a constellation of dots joined by lines spreading across the rest of the black page — Sitting on the box, at the edge of the chart.

Three drifts of bleached dust falling diagonally across the page, a small framed panel holding a standing figure, and a row of vertical bars along the foot, the page edge bleached to gold — The figure is in a box. The weather is not.

A wide constellation of dotted paths and joined points filling the page, with a small figure in a wide hat standing in a doorway at the lower left — All of that, and one person at the bottom of it.

Two pages of the book photographed side by side, both scattered with pale bleached forms, dots joined by lines and small framed bars — Two pages that were made to be seen together.

A large spiral bloom of bleach at the upper left, a pouring line of gold running down and across the page as a long dotted path, and a ruled frame around the lower half — It poured, and then it was drawn over.

Two soft clouds of bleach floating in an otherwise empty starfield, one long and one round, both dissolving at their edges — Nothing here but weather.

Long gold tethers hanging from the top of the page with weighted ends, a small stepped ziggurat and an envelope shape at the right, and a woven band along the foot — Everything is hanging from something.

A wireframe cube standing on a woven band, a hanging line with a spiral at its top, a mottled moon and a long tapered baton falling through the upper half — The cube again, on the ground this time.

The red-bound book photographed open, its red cloth edge showing at the left, the two black pages carrying bleached spires, small figures and a large hooded shape at the right — This is the one cased in red cloth.

A head and shoulders drawn as a dense mesh of fine bleach lines filling the page, with a curling line and a figure three beside it and a small cross at the left — The clearest face in any of the books.

A figure in a wide-brimmed hat walks through the whole set: standing on a rock, standing in a doorway, sometimes only a scribble at the bottom of an enormous sky. Beside him runs an invented script that never says anything, ruled into boxes like a page from a dictionary.

A long plumb line hanging from the top of the page down to a small ringed weight, a low bleached horizon beneath it, and a figure of fine lines standing below — A line dropped to find the ground.

Two standing figures drawn in faint bleach lines on a near-black page, with diagonal streaks falling across them like rain and a small spiral above — Two of them, out in it.

A pale orb and two small forms in a black sky above a broad ground of rust-coloured bleach, with a thin spire rising from the horizon at the left — The paper went red where the bleach sat longest.

A figure of fine dots and lines standing behind a low wall, a small crown of marks above its head, bands of invented script and a waveform running along the wall, with a constellation overhead — Crowned, behind a wall of writing.

Two long lines crossing in an X with a weighted dot at each end, a soft moon at the upper left, and a low bleached horizon with a single spire at the foot — Two paths, and where they cross.

A pink-tinged cloud of bleach at the centre of a black page, small discs joined by lines above it, a long wave of dotted line beneath, and a row of small arrow glyphs at the foot — A wave, in a language of arrows.

A large gold nest of concentric scribbled rings at the right, a constellation of dots and lines above with a long curling thread, and two ruled boxes holding small squares along the foot — The nest again, bigger, and nearly a sun.

A triangle holding a small disc, a column of invented script, a grid of dots and a constellation across the upper half, all standing above a broad purple-brown ground of eaten paper — Where the bleach turned the black to violet.

A pale sepia page unlike the rest, showing a horizon crowded with tiny drawn figures and structures, and below it a single tall figure made of dense scribbled lines standing in an empty field — The one page where the light won.

A heavily worked page divided into bands, marked with the letters A and B and a row of numerals, with a bright disc, small boxes, animals and figures scattered through it, its edges bleached to sepia — The densest page in the books, and the most eaten.

A great bleached dome filling the top of the page like a low moon, with figures, a bright disc and long drips beneath it, and a dark band of water or ground along the foot — The moon came down until it filled the sky.

Bleach is not reversible and it keeps working after the hand leaves, so a page cannot be corrected and the book cannot be edited. What is bound is what happened.

A page taken almost entirely by bright gold bleach, with trees rising on both sides and a seated figure at the centre with its hands raised, everything running and dripping — The brightest page. It looks lit from inside.

A landscape in bright gold on black: two peaked mountains along the horizon, a sun at the upper right, a standing figure at the centre and a great branching tree at the right — A whole world, in one page of bleach.

A ringed moon high in a black sky above a wide ploughed field drawn in fine gold lines, with a low serrated horizon between them — The field runs all the way to the edge.

A long thin line curving down the page to a small framed panel holding a bright disc, with scattered specks and a low serrated horizon at the foot — Almost nothing, and it still holds.

A figure in a wide hat standing on a bleached shore, with pale orbs of different sizes floating above and to the right, some of them tethered by fine lines — He is watching them go up.

A single pale spiral wound round itself at the centre of an otherwise empty black page, with two small dots below it — One mark, one page. It could not be taken back.

A thin dotted ellipse drawn in pale bleach across an almost empty black page, with a single small disc inside it and a soft pale drift at the foot — An orbit, and the thing it goes around.

Splashes and dripping runs of bleach across the upper half of the page, and a pale flood of it rising from the bottom edge, the paper eaten grey where it pooled — This one got away from him, and he kept it.

A bleached cloud filling the lower half of the page, above it two ruled bands of invented script, three lines of erased writing and a small pale disc — The invented script turns up here too.

A page under a large textured moon, a standing form and scattered marks drawn in pale gold below it — Under the moon

Dated by their own photographs: every scan in the set was made on 18 December 2017, which puts the books before the CAUSTIC show at Casa Matei in May 2018 and before the degree show that produced the folded books. This is around ninety pages; fifty-two are shown here.

Medium: Sodium hypochlorite (bleach) on black paper, bound
Materials: Sodium hypochlorite (household chlorine bleach), Black paper, Cloth binding
Dimensions: Around ninety pages across several bound volumes
Role: Artist