2024 - 2025
2025
Gouache on whole vellum skin; linen bookcloth, oak, brass, woven book headband
“Here, hands have been decontextualized from medieval scenes of birth, surgery, mourning, and revelation. They have been left in red, the colour used to underpaint all manuscript illuminations. These have been interspersed with ‘manicules’; pointing hands drawn in the margins of manuscript books from as early as the 11th century. These hands were used as symbols of alarm and to draw attention to an important passage in the text. The manicule is a basic unit of annotation and commentary, gesturing at the text, unable to change it.”
2025
Gouache on vellum; oak, brass
This is an image of a surgeon preparing to ‘blood-let’ a patient who was originally drawn lying naked on the ladder-like structure, and who has here been removed. The word ‘rubric’ in historical bookmaking refers to the red margins and lettering done on a manuscript page to guide the reader.
2024
Unpainted vellum; linen book cloth, oak, brass
This fragment shows a scar, most likely a healed bug-bite, and tiny hairs. A ‘colophon’ in bookmaking is the last page, where the maker lists their materials.
Documentation by Chris Uhren