Untitled 2008 - partially erased book page
Artist
Jonathan Owen
(Liverpool, England, born 1973)
Date2008
MediumPrinted book illustration altered by the artist
ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings
DimensionsImage Size: 24 x 17cm
Paper Size: 28.5 x 21.5cm
Frame Size: 40.2 x 33.3 x 3.2cm
Paper Size: 28.5 x 21.5cm
Frame Size: 40.2 x 33.3 x 3.2cm
AcquisitionPurchased in 2009 with assistance from the National Fund for Acquisitions.
Copyright© Jonathan Owen
LocationOn Display - Gallery 04
Object numberABDAG017075
Keywords
This is one of a set of book plates which Owen removed from a book about public monuments. In what he describes as 'acts of careful vandalism', he reworked the prints, scraping out the image to 'erase' the monument but leaving some lines to reconstruct the background. Here the sculpture plinth is laid bare and trees are conjured-up from the printed image that was the the sculpture - they are not drawn in.
This inherently modest work could be seen to criticise the ethos of the large scale public art commission. 'But,' Owen claims, 'it's not an attack. It's part celebration, part love song'.
Exhibitions
Jonathan Skelton
Derwent Lees
Henry Herbert La Thangue
Robert Henderson Blyth
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones
1859