Marjon MUDDE
France
https://artmarjonmudde.wordpress.com
ZIRAN
2023
Linocut, etching, collages of handmade and marbles paper on fabric
8,8 x 9,8 x 1,4 inches (closed) ; 60 x 23 x 1,4 inches (open)
Artist Statement
Scientific facts do not often inspire book artists, who most often root their work in literature and visual arts. So did I, until I came across an article in a French “science for all” magazine explaining about the new frontiers of life.
Recent research and a complete new generation of scientists have contributed to new insights and help look upon IXX and XX century theories as part of history. The neat borders of the definition of life have expanded and have become sometimes blurred: exciting new areas to be explored.
Of course artists are familiar with revolutions and new ways ! So I happily started learning about Mitochondria, Giant Viruses and the behavior of oil blobs…not knowing where this would lead me.
When came the time to start writing the 3 poems for this book, parallels with the ways human beings organize their social world wanted to be explored, as I often use wordplay and second meanings in my writings. The cold scientific words were replaced by poetic words (in French), to my big surprise.
The same road was taken for the linocuts, based on microscope pictures, but treated with artistical freedom.
Of course scientists continue to wonder about the origin of life and have resolved many puzzles recently. But it seems to me that there is still a part of mystery to the very beginnings.
I saw there a link to philosophy, and added a short quote from the Tao Te King.
Here science and literature join hands to enable freedom of thought and exploration.
The title of the book « Zìrán », is a Chinese word, which can mean Natural in modern language, and Spontaneity in the words of the Taoists.
The advantage of making a single copy artists book is that one can include a wide variety of scraps and left-overs, which is not possible for a limited edition. As I have been doing a lot of limited editions in my 40 years career, I have a huge amount of scraps and treasure boxes, put away for ‘further reference”. What a joy to select bits of handmade paper I made twenty years ago, to combine it with a cut-up big etching even older, finally use some of the beautiful marbled paper by the French master marbler Vincent Rougier. All this made such colorful and tactile compositions in which to include the new linocuts, to be mounted on cotton gauze which I dyed first in the right shade. I printed the text in letterpress, even if it’s just one copy!
Hours of hand stitching it all to strips of fabric, and finally putting on the metal pieces (where I failed the first time and had to undo the binding and start all over again… ) finished the book, so I could take its measurements and create the box.