Chris Perry | Sculpture

Altered Books

 

On view February 5 – February 28, 2018

Art reception on February 10th  Saturday 6 – 8:30 pm

EBK Gallery [small works].
218 Pearl St.
Hartford, CT

 

“Typically when one thinks of the phrase “book arts,” images of handmade paper and ideas of storytelling might come to mind.  While these are certainly a part of the work of Chris Perry, in his hands books are transformed into the building blocks of sculpture’s unique capacity to explore form and space. He does this by abandoning the visceral experience of thumbing through words, on a page, and replaces it with the visual experience of moving ones eyes, quite literally, through space.

All the while leaving the reference of his source material, the book, is hyper-present. One might say in a sense he takes books abstract and innate ability to transport the reader to another world and makes it a tangible experience for all to behold.” -Jeffrey Mueller, Guest Curator

 

“The focus of my work is always water, in all its forms and effects on other things, both man-made and natural.

The early pieces were stand alone, single volumes that had a small number of pages, each carefully planned and cut into moving shapes, all within the body of the volume. As they became more complicated they accumulated multiple volumes and started to “sprout” appendages of cut paper that extended out from all edges and eventually from the spine as well.

The works contain a number of signature elements to elicit the information I wish the viewer to take away, in the same fashion a writer will use the same elements repeatedly in her writing, like the use of odd names, or staging the action in the same time period or location over and over, or simply to have a particular way of crafting sentences.” -C.P.

 

click on an image to enlarge or forward through

 

Gallery Sheet and Pricing PDF

 

Chris Perry

Following a degreed study in painting, Chris moved to New York where he worked in the art world, first at the Guggenheim Museum, and later for a selection of artists. His own work progressed slowly while he pursued a career in architectural woodworking until 2007 when he returned to making art full time.

The interest in book-binding grew out of a need to create a demonstrative piece for a planned published work that incorporated many hundreds of drawings in a hand-bound book. He soon found that the process of book-binding, especially binding hand-cut pages that emulated what happens in a flip book, took over all of his studio time.

While still exploring the small spaces he creates within a few hand-cut volumes, Chris is actively planning on pieces that address entire rooms using thousands of volumes to depict water structures such as a hurricane, or tsnuami, or a storm front.

Chris and his wife currently live and work in Ridgefield Connecticut.

 

CV:

Education:

1975                       BFA – Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, Md.

1973, 1974           University of Saskatchewan Emma Lake Campus, Saskatchewan, Canada

1972                       Corcoran Gallery School of Art, Washington, DC

 

Exhibitions:

2018

Solo Show  EBK Gallery Hartford, Ct.

Paper, Rock Scissors  5 Points Gallery Torrington, Ct.

Books Undone: the art of altered books  The Gallery at Penn College  Williamsport, Pa.

 

2017

Art of the Book 2017 Monroe Library, Rochester, NY

Unbound VII ArtisTree Gallery South Pomfret, Vt.

Voulme: two A novel Interpretation by Alice Walsh and Chris Perry Mark Twain Library, West Redding, Ct.

Paris, Texas, Artspace New Haven, New Haven, Ct.

Boundless: Contemporary Altered Books, Hill-stead Museum, Farmington, Ct.

 

2016

Art of the Book 2016 Monroe Library, Rochester, NY

Unbound VI ArtisTree Gallery Woodstock, VT.

The Book As Art Decatur Arts Center Decatur, Ga.

Chris Perry: Making Water Out of Paper Brooklyn Library, Grand Army Plaza

By A Thread: The Fine Art of Fiber Ridgefield Guild of Artists curated by Nancy Moore

Featured Artist Center For Book Arts, New York City

 

2015

Art of the Book WoCA, Fort Worth, Texas

Brand 43 Paperworks Brand Library, Glendale, Ca.

Unbound V ArtisTree Gallery Vt.

26^th Annual Works on Paper McNeese State University, Lake charles, La.

Ripple Effect (solo show) University of Minot, Minot North Dakota

Pop-up First Street Gallery Chelsea, New York City

 

2014

Ct(un)Bound ArtSpace Gallery, New Haven, Ct.

Odd Volumes: Book Art from the Allan Chasanoff Collection Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Ct.

Over the Edge: Paperworks Unbound Williamsburg Art and Historical Center Williamsburg, Broolyn, NY

Unbound IV ArtisTree Gallery, Woodstock, Vt.

Art of the Boros Curated by Denise Bibro, Denise Bibro Gallery, New York

Brand 42 Paperworks, Brand Library, Glendale, Ca.

art of the 5: brooklyn represents  ITC Center  New York, NY; curated by Debra Spencer

Americas 2014 Paperworks  Northwest Art Center Minot State University N. Dakota

 

2013

New York Bound: International Bookart Biennial Islip Art Museum, Islip, NY

Unbound III ArtisTree Gallery, Woodstock, Vt.

The Book as Art Decatur Arts Alliance, Decatur, Ga.

Hidden Agendas Atelier 6000, Bend, Or.

 

2011

Brand 40 Paperworks, Brand Library, Glendale, CA

Unbound” Artistree Gallery, Woodstock, VT

 

2010

I Will Cut Thru”Center For The Book Arts and Barbara

Walters Gallery, Sarah Lawrence College

 

Public Collections:

Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware, Special Collections

Yuko Nii Foundation, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY

Francis Williams Foundation, Boston, MA

Alan Chasanoff “The Book Under Pressure”  Collection Yale University Gallery of Art,       New Haven, CT

University of Washington Library, Seattle, Wa.

Brown University Library, Providence, RI