Georgia Russell  (born, UK 1974)
The Clans and Tartans of Scotland
2002
Printed paper book jacket, cut and folded; in perspex box
31.1 x 20 x 12.7 cm
Purchased through the Julie and Robert Breckman Print Fund
Museum no. E.333-2003

Georgia Russell uses books and their constituent parts for their associations, tapping into their invisible histories of ownership and use. She 'un-makes' books, book jackets and printed sheet-music, by simply cutting, folding and layering the papers. The resulting art works are extraordinary flowerings of fragile new forms, often suggestive of organic materials such as flames, feathers, grasses or sea-weeds. They evoke the idea of words and sounds breaking out of the confines of their conventional formats. As a Scot, Russell found a personal resonance in this book-jacket taken from The Clans and Tartans of Scotland. She cut and shaped it, leaving the title intact and legible, in the process unlocking its latent potential meanings. No longer subservient to the text it once wrapped, it becomes a new thing which holds in delicate balance both the associative traces of its past identity and the implications of its new form.