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| "Manhole"
(2003) is something of a hand-drawn 'editioned' artist book. The first
part is simply an artist book, similar to other tightly engineered volumes
Teplin has created in the past, including maddeningly detailed pen and
ink drawing accompanied with strategically placed, obsessive, scalpel-incised
holes. Because artist books are notoriously difficult to exhibit, the
second part of this project was born. It consists of one fully-bound
book, identical to the original master copy, for every page spread in
that master. For example, since there are twenty page spreads in the
master - there are twenty individually-bound books, identical to the
master, though all the pages are blank except for the spread corresponding
to that of the master. What makes it so interesting is that several
images of the master book have been cut through consecutive pages so
that they are visible on multiple page spreads. So for each singular
book in the "editioned" part, the same image was redrawn anywhere
from one to four times, depending on how many page spreads that image
appears on in the master copy. Scott Teplin has always been attracted
to specific work of comic book artists where, in consecutive panels,
even though a character or scene appears the same, the viewer is able
to pick out tiny details pointing to the fact that the artist took the
time to redraw the image each time, instead of succumbing to the easy
(and often cold and sterile) methods of speeding up the process of drawing.
Teplin feels it lends a certain warmth to the work that images he sees
everywhere tend to lack. |
