Charlene Asato – Tyger
Charlene Asato with text by William Blake. I see a lot of tunnel books these days, most of them edition works and imagery based, rather than text based and smaller in scale than this one. This unique tunnel book by Charlene Asato is entirely handpainted and lettered, the calligraphy text written around the edges of the cut circle shapes on each page, diminishing in diameter front to back. The watercolor weight pages are heavy and stiff enough for the book to display well fully extended, the space between each successive page adequate to allow that each page be accessible to a viewer. One of my favorite aspects is that the side panels are also handpainted with a tiger stripe pattern. The book title is on its own handpainted panel on the inner front cover, the deceptively plain exterior of this book has the title debossed.
This book, containing as it does 6 watercolor paintings, is an of the obvious example of the undervaluation of artists’ books. It is a one-of-a-kind work and is priced at $300.
Bookbinding captured Charlene Asato’s interest over 25 years ago when she was learning calligraphy in the SF Bay Area. In Hawaii for the past seven years, she focuses on incorporating her art pursuits into her artist books, i.e., calligraphy, photography, paper surface design, watercolor, embossing, linocuts, origami, assemblage and collage.
Artist statement, images, descriptive details and ordering information here:
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