Continuing our examination of unconventional materials and methods used in the creation of artist’s books, is Jim Pernotto’s Upper U.S. Papermill. I selected this work because of the interesting binding, as well as the juxtaposition of the leaves of paper.
Pernotto’s work spans a good chunk of time and makes use of all media. His foundational experimentation in expression came in the form of papermaking and printmaking, though he now paints and uses various mediums in order to explore recent fascination with the nexus of science and myth. Interweaving time and space, the viewer pulls apart meaning from context. Convergence of themes seems to be how Pernotto finds success in his compositions. In Upper U.S. Papermill, created in 1975, we see the concept of book as a radically bound object from another consciousness. Pernotto does not deem a conventional vertical binding necessary to understand content. He opts for a a form resembling a curved, toothy smile, the stitching mimicking sutures in skin. The grin widens to allow movement, while the corners restrict the opening.
The content of Pernotto’s book is just as unconventional. The intersections and angles created by the papers have a chaotic melody to their interaction, making the layered masking tape composition all the more at home in a hyper 3D context. The comic book characters who have been operated on with ballpoint pen seem less defaced and marred… than corrected into a new harmonious existence with their surroundings. The dyed handmade paper has the look of a botched litmus test done with blood. A squinted eye strikes this viewer with a second of hazy confusion: “Instructions? Directions? Discarded street origami made by a newspaper that’s weathered the gust of a passing bus and bled at the hands of a brief downpour?” Pernotto’s work achieves balance amidst chaos and shows the possibilities of artistic expression within a medium that has flowered from rigidity into expressive fragility.
-Rebecca Kish