She’s been called a “literary vandal” and a “dissector” by Leah Ollman (LATimesBlog 2011). Why so? Because artist Susan Sironi cuts up books.
Over the last ten years,” Sironi states, “I have been using vintage books as an initial source material, altering them into sculptural collages that reflect on history and/or the past.”
For Flower Arrangements, she found or bought six copies of the same book and cut them to reveal different floral arrangements, exquisite in their detail and palate. With a vintage copy of Gulliver’s Travels, Sironi dug, cut, and snipped creating a 3-dimensional foot.
In some works, the emphasis is on text rather than an image, some linear and retreating into the shadows, reflecting the spine’s depth, while others such as In Our Image is layered with a swirl of seemingly colored, dried, cured, and twisted strips of the page.
Offramp Gallery in Pasadena presents “Forget Me Not,” a solo exhibition that runs through April 20th.
Four of the gallery walls (48 linear feet) will be wrapped with a “timeline” collage using old piano rolls as a template and left-over cuttings from the vintage books as imagery.
Sironi states, “The timeline, while based on the progression of a piano score, is not intended to be a linear recording of events or actions, but an inference that history can be flowing and repetitive without beginnings or endings.”
A large interactive “sandbox” is filled with minute cuttings from books (and) several collages from cuttings will be on display. (Italicized text courtesy of Offramp Gallery)
Sironi’s art has been purchased by the likes of actor Neil Patrick Harris and philanthropist Gilena Simons, and is included the Saygo and Pardon Collection.
Forget Me Not by Susan Sironi
Offramp Gallery, 1702 Lincoln Ave., Pasadena 91103
Exhibit through Sunday, April 20th
Hours: Friday-Sunday, 1-5 p.m.
Or by appointment; call 626.298.6931