Artist’s Book, 2003
Inkjet on Somerset Velvet Enhanced 255gsm with printed collage on hand-made paper
Edition of 100
29.7cm x 21.2cm
The Artist’s Studio in Times of Unease is the last in a series of three. The first, A Room in Portbou, was inspired by the last days of Walter Benjamin in the dismal border town between France and Spain, overshadowed by the Pyrenees. Two themes that run through it are displacement and exile and the question of what responsibility – if any – does the artist have to events that take place beyond the studio window. These two themes were taken up in the second and third books in the series, A Book of the Lost and The Artist’s Studio in Times of Unease.
The Artist’s Studio in Times of Unease takes up the second theme from A Room in Portbou. Images of the artist’s studio, which are based loosely on photographs of Matisse’s studio, are counterpointed with images of war in Iraq.