MA Book Art Show, Colchester

 MA students and artists both past and present, are showing work at Slack Space, Victoria Place, Eld Lane,  Colchester. ( More info at  http://iheartslackspace.blogspot.co.uk )

The show brings together current students work as well as graduates from the Colchester Book and the Arts MA Degree course. The common starting point is the "book" in it's widest sense. Each artist brings something unique and personal to the finished art work.

There is a rich variety of work on show ranging from altered books to sculptural pieces. All of the work is of a high standard. Among those that particuarly caught my attention were Paula McGregors assemblages. I found myself peering in to the boxes, curious about the objects and stories contained within. More of her work can be seen at www.paulamacgregor.com

Miranda Campbell, www.bookspells.com,  has made the structure of her books from the bark of trees.The natural curve old drying bark has been sympathetically respected and responded to. I felt her books capture an ephemeral moment of time.

Simuarly, drawing inspiration from nature and trees, Karen Dennisons work uses photographs of trees. She lays transparent pages on top of each other which is then printed onto a panel of glass - all the pages merge into one, and are contained within "one page". More info kdennison.wordpress.com

Gwen Simpson's altered book, - a work in progress pays tribute to the forgotten women in history, and explores how their contributions and names have been erased, or left out. ( gwensimpson.weebly.com )

While David Howe cleverly uses words to form the contours of a river. Looking at his work,  I was left wandering about how history becomes embedded in local landscapes, and of all the traces and marks we leave behind. This beautiful piece of work can be viewed on artbookart.com

While I have mentioned only a few artists, I must say, there are plenty of other interesting works on display. Please forgive me for not mentioning them all!  There is still a week to see the show as it continues until 23rd March.