PAINT OUTS, CUT OUTS, TEAR UP ERASURES

An exhibition hosted by Bower Ashton Library, Bristol, UK

1st November – 5th December 2023

The first erasure texts I made were on the front pages of the METRO newspaper.

I can’t remember if I had seen any erasure work prior to this – I was aware of those documents  – often those of the government – that are censored with blocked out text, but, I think, that was all.  

I wondered if it was possible, to find in the headline story of the METRO – describing a national or world event – words I could use to record my thoughts or actions for that particular day, just like a diary, covering up the ‘unwanted’ words with white paint.

This process took time, constantly re-reading the article, finding words that fell into the right order to make sense. When this happened ( and this was mostly possible  ) the found words ‘cut to the chase’ and highlighted a poignant moment.     

Since then I have erased texts, occasionally images, in a variety of ways, with paint, erasers, pens, by tearing and with scissors, and removing text with scalpel blades. Made erasures by using a typewriter with no ribbon, the metal keys damaging / destroying the text and sometimes the paper.

I like the physicality of altering text. The covering up or removal of words. When using scalpel blades, the removal of words and paper could be regarded by some, as sacrilegious – attacking a work of literature. I am struck, however, by how a destroyed page has a fragility, often a beauty, having survived such a ‘creative’ attack. 

A consequence of removing text, is the increase in the amount of ‘empty’ space around the words remaining. This removal, feels like something being ‘released’ creating a space for the eye to consider these ‘floating’ words ( no longer held in sequential order ) differently. 

Working with erasures, I am taken with the idea and process of absence, the absence of something that was. 

A challenge is to create texts which alter the sense and meaning, even the subject, of the source material. One I have in mind – to take, say, a car manual and create from this a love story.  

This exhibition will include erased books ; A Guide to the National Gallery, a RSPB book of birds, several guide books, Ladybird books – erased photographs and French texts, typewriter erasures, and an erasure of the Holy Communion Service. The Nose, by Nikolai Gogol has been ‘totally’ erased with each and every word cut from this short work, and each one placed in a box, with the invitation to then re-use these words to create a new text. 

During the past year I have submitted some of the erasure work to online and print poetry journals, and these have been published by 3:AM, Arteidolia, Ballast, and Word For Word, amongst others.

To open the exhibition there will be a workshop with students to create erasure texts.

WORK IN THE EXHIBITION

ERASURE WORK ON POETRY WEBSITES ~

3:AM Magazine

www.3ammagazine.com/3am/?s=Daniel+Lehan&swpmfe=652ea0d21b1427a1bfa685e40d9bc1de

Ballast

https://www.ballastjournal.com/daniel-lehan

Arteidolia

www.arteidolia.com/swifts-slows-daniel-lehan/

Word For Word

http://www.wordforword.info/vol41/Lehan.html

IMAGES FROM ERASURE WORKSHOP

Book Launch & Underground Animals

Photographs of my hands are included in 105 Artists’ Hands: Touch Tell Create – a book of photographs of the hands of artists, taken by Cally Trench. Cally has said of the book . . . . the artists themselves write about their hands, lives and work; they make clear the close and complex relationships of artists’ hands to their hearts, minds and eyes. In addition, there are entertainments, essays, stories, poems, and picture projects – all about hands – by over thirty of the artists.

As well as the photograph that Cally took of my hands, I have contributed a photograph Hand and Tubes, taken in hospital –

an essay On Not Having Artists’ Hands And Being Left-Handed, and Small Hand Poem, a visual poem.

The book launch for the book took place on Sunday 1st of August at Space 36, 36 Ashley road, London with readings from the book and performances, including those by

Neda Dana-Haeri, Monika Tobel, Chris Mercier, Salma Ahmad Caller, Ema Mano Epps, Jane Glennie, Alex Dewart, Nick Trench, Christina Lovey, Guy Tarrant, Ahmed Farooqui and Lydia Julien. I read On Not Having Artists’ Hands And Being Left-Handed, and talked about my recent diagnosis of Carpel Tunnel Syndrome.

105 Artists’ Hands priced £20 (including UK postage) is available from Peculiarity Press

http://www.peculiaritypress.com

Performers at the book launch – photographs courtesy of Cally Trench and Philip Lee

And here are a few images of a recently completed collage series Underground Animals.

Eight Films Made of Collages Created During Lockdown

Made specifically for BABE – Bristol Artist’s Book Event – held at the Arnolfini over the weekend of 17 / 18 April 2021, the films narrate, as the camera roves over their collaged surfaces, the various scenarios depicted in four large works – two of these collages are sized 6.5 x 2.5 ft and 4 x 5 ft ~ The Temple Of The Sun, The Annual Blessing Of The Animals, Circus Acts (in progress) and Untitled.

BABE – Bristol Artist’s Book Event at the Arnolfini online presented works by book artists from around the world over the weekend of 17 / 18 April with contributions from artists and publishers in Australia, Argentina, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, UK & Ireland and the USA. BABE included 116 artist’s book films by artists and small presses, a downloadable mini catalogue, a writing workshop led by Egidija Čiricaitė, a printing demonstration by the Lemonade Press and an online paper cutting workshop for families by Linda Toigo. BABE2021 was organised by Sarah Bodman, Angie Butler, Phil Owen and Tom Sowden – Centre for Fine Print Research, School of Art & Design UWE Bristol and Arnolfini.

The full programme is here https://arnolfini.org.uk/whatson-category/babe-2021-the-lost-weekend/

Usually, I use original material from books and magazines, but it has been difficult to source fresh supplies of these with charity shops and street markets closed. A few things to be found on ebay, but that’s like throwing dice.  So, as a way of not using up my ‘stock’ of images, I began ( with Circus Acts ) to use a black & white photocopier.

Here are the films in sequential order

Collage Events

Colloquium

The Centre for Fine Print Research in association with the London Centre For Books Arts has organised a day of presentations and discussions focused on collage making and artists’ books – to be held on 14 August 2020. The tickets for this have now all been allocated – however – the event will be archived and can be viewed at http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/lcbacollage/

Colloquium Films

Four collagists – Jeremy Dixon – Jean McEwan – Jeff Rathermel, and myself have been invited to discuss their work and to take questions from an online audience and have each made a film about our collage work – these have already been uploaded to the same website.

Lockdown Collages

During Lockdown I made, and continue to make large collages. Unable to source material from the usual charity shops, I made use of all the various books and magazines I have collected over the years. I also decided that I would just start and see where these took me in terms of their content, rather than set out to create something planned out – which I do when making my books. The first collage Scenes From An Unmade Film was influenced by the films I was watching by – Bella Tarr – Visconti – Pasolini – and in particular Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev – the work of Peter Breugel, and The Stories Of The Desert Fathers, painted circa 1420, by Fra Angelico. This collage measures 24 x 72 inches. The second collage The Tower measures 96 x 23 inches, and the third, with a provisional title of Solari’s Hotel, 78 x 30 inches. These are made with black and white, and sepia toned images. I also made two smaller works collaged with images in colour. My film includes a filmed narration of the first two collages, as the camera roves over the surface of the collages.

Details of Large Collages . . .

Invite to Small Publisher’s Fair & Invite to A Pollock’s Gallimaufry Exhibition . . .

The week before participating in the forthcoming Small Publishers Fair, several of my toy bagatelles are included in the exhibition A Pollocks Gallimaufry – the opening of which takes place on Thursday 7 of November. During the opening I will read stories from a booklet titled Mr Pollock’s Cut Outs – an edition of 54 copies – made for the exhibition. The stories were written by cutting out words and phrases from the guide book to the Pollock Toy Museum and using ONLY these to invent new stories.

The Blue Notebook – Volume 14 – Autumn / Winter 2019

Pages from my collaged diary Day Pages are featured in the current edition of The Blue Notebook. The pages are selected from those kept during a four day visit to Paris in May of this year. A full colour PDF of the publication is available to download here http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/tbn/x1856/45ce/tbn27.pdf

National Poetry Library, Small Publishers Fair and Zero Waste

Copies of these recent books This World Will Never . . . DAWN and Owlmen / Menowls have been purchased by the National Poetry Library for their collection at the Southbank Centre, London. Further details and images of these books are in the Portfolio section of this site.

My Hands

My hand (s) were recently photographed by Cally Trench for her Artists’ Hands project. In 2020 / 21 Cally will exhibit all of the images, in the meantime the photograph chosen by Cally, the entire Artists’ Hands project, and further information can be seen here ~ http://www.callytrench.co.uk/52-photographs.html

As well as the photograph selected for the project, Cally also took these photographs.

Gwalia Gazette – World Book Night 2019

Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood was selected by the WBN 2019 coordinator Linda Parr with 47 contributors reading Under Milk Wood and then selecting their ten favourite words. Artists, translators and writers sent their chosen words from Canada, Germany, Israel, The Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and USA.

My favourite words were – in English and Welsh

Biscuit / bisged

Kippers / penwaig

Nuzzle / Trwyno

Sill / Sil

Tea caddy / Cadi te

Tea gowns / Gynau the

Treacle / Triog

Trousers / Trowsus

Wet nosed / Tlawd gwlyb

Whale juice / Morfil sudd

The core group of WBN United Artists visited Carmarthen and Laugharne in March 2019 and after a trip to Dylan Thomas’s former home, the words were jumbled up to use as the basis for elements of a local small newspaper, the Gwalia Gazette, featuring local news, classified ads, a poets’ corner, advertisements for local shops and services, racing results and lonely hearts.

Link here to a PDF version of the Gwalia Gazette ~

http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/pdf/gazette.pdf

Gwalia Gazette Video ~

For World Book Night, a video was made featuring photographs from Carmarthen and Laugharne, a specially produced map by Linda Parr, and the making of the Gwalia Gazette with visual responses to some of the words by Guy Begbie, Jeremy Dixon, Gen Harrison, Zelda Velika.

https://vimeo.com/330330009

Contributors to the project: Vick Bain, Guy Begbie, Kate Bernstein, Csilla Biro, Julie Blankenship, Sarah Bodman, Nancy Campbell, Chrystal Cherniwchan, Andrew Dally, Jeremy Dixon, Sara Elgerot, Su Fahy, Jil Fairclough, Stephen Fowler, Jan Fyfe, Hazel Grainger, Gen Harrison, Hazel Ingrey, Rosemary Ingrey, Eva C Johansson, Elaine Knight, Mary Kritz, Pauline Lamont‐Fisher, Jill Lauriston, Daniel Lehan, Tamar MacLellan, Barbara A Morton, Linda Parr, Sumi Perera, Karen Pierce, Bernd W Plake, Catherine Polley, Martin Polley, Alison Raybould, Andrea Robinson, Lynne Shaw, Gwen Simpson, Noriko Suzuki Bosco, Elisabeth Tonnard, Eran Tzelgov, Zelda Velika, Cathey Webb, Corinne Welch, Ulla West, Maria White, Roy Willingham, and Philippa Wood.

Copies of the Gazette are held in the following collections and libraries ~

Archivo Libri d”Artista, Milan

Bavarian State Library

The Saint Petersburg Literary Museum

Caulfield Library, Monash University, Melbourne

The British Library, London

Cyprus University of Technology

KKV Grafik Artist’s Book Arkiv, Sweden

NabilaFluxus Archive Museum, Treviso

State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

Tate Britain, London

Yale Centre for British Art, USA

Greek Sculpture and Hummingbirds – An Enchanting Swim – HELD

These three books which will be launched at the Small Publishers Fair taking place at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1 on Friday 9 and Saturday 10 from 11am to 7pm.

http://smallpublishersfair.co.uk

Please contact me at daniel@daniel-lehan.com to purchase.

Greek Sculpture and Humming Birds

28.5 x 21 cm

14 images laser printed on acetate / 14 images laser printed on paper

£25 plus p+p

An Enchanting Dive . . .

20 x 29 cm

10 pages, laser printed

Each copy printed on a different coloured paper

£12 plus p + p

HELD

14 x 14.5 cm

33 pages, laser printed

Individual covers

£15 plus p+p