The Bodleian Bibliographical Press is delighted to welcome David Armes (Red Plate Press) as printer in residence during four weeks in November-December 2019.
During the residency, Armes will work at the Bodleian’s Bibliographical Press on an addition to his series, ‘Text Landscapes,’ site-specific works made with letterpress printing on paper.
Armes is a visual artist working with print, language and geography. His work is frequently site-specific and considers how sense and experience of place can be represented, with source material including automatic writing, anonymous conversations and oral history. He works primarily with letterpress printing on paper and the final forms can vary in shape and size from large scroll installations to broadside prints to artists’ books and chapbooks. Through using what was once an industrial print process, he is interested in where the multiple meets the unique, where the ephemeral meets the archival.
Based in West Yorkshire, Armes has held artistic residencies at Zygote Press fine art print studio (Cleveland, USA; 2018), Wells Book Arts Center (New York, USA; 2017), BBC Radio Lancashire (Blackburn, UK; 2017) and Huddersfield Art Gallery (West Yorkshire, UK; 2016)
While he is in residence, David Armes will lead a public workshop and give a public lecture.
25 November & 28 November Public workshop: ‘Wood type: pattern, colour and language’
5:30 – 8:30pm
Bodleian Bibliographical Press, Schola Musicae, Old Bodleian Library
Registration fee: £30 (+ £1 booking fee)
This is a hands-on workshop using the wood type collection and iron hand presses. Participants learn the basics of letterpressprinting, use wood type in an expressive and creative manner, and learn to see type as image. Participants will complete a small edition of prints.
To register: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/events-exhibitions
5 December Lecture: ‘Accumulating Narrative – meaning and mutation in letterpress printing’
co-presented by the Bodleian Libraries Centre for the Study of the Book and the Oxford Bibliographical Society.
This lecture will be delivered from an artist research perspective, drawing on David Armes’s own practice and that of the artists whose work he will explore. It looks at the links between the 1960s concrete poetry work of Hansjörg Mayer and the graphic typographical works of Wolfgang Weingart, drawing a line through the later 20th century work of Ken Campbell to reach the 21st century work of contemporary artists Vida Sačić, Aaron Cohick, Marianne Dages and Dimitri Runkkari.
The lecture will pose questions on subjects such as how meaning can mutate through the process of production, what impact the physicality of materials has and how we can read narratives created through improvisational production techniques.
Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford, 5:15 pm
Free admission. No booking required.
For information on attending the lecture, please see the event listing at https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/accumulating-narrative