Ellen Rebecca: Artwork

One piece I created was called Stolen Journey (Fig 1). For this piece I was given an old book. I wanted it to be hardback and look used to show an aged story. It just so happened that the perfect book, appearance-wise, was called ‘Stolen Journey’ Additionally I feel that the title fitted perfectly, and in some ways added, to the art. I deconstructed the book so that the A5 folded double pages were combined as a single flat A4 one. I then inserted the pages into my printer and began printing my old family photos onto them. As my Gran is no longer with us to ask the date order and my Grandad could not remember, I decided to put them in the order that I guessed they would go. I was really pleased with this piece but felt it had more potential and really needed to be openly displayed on a larger scale, so I attached the pages singly to a large piece of canvas, creating a new piece: ‘Stolen Journey II’ (Fig 2). This allows a much easier viewing experience, as the viewer is not required to turn the pages. An idea like this very much reminds me of artist Christian Boltanski (his piece ‘Photo Album of the Family D’ (Fig 3) in particular). Boltanski is someone who continues to inspire my work, so much so that I then went on to research him for my dissertation.