Mardy Sears
Sound Horn OK!
In India, transportation can be surprising. Old tractors drive on the street and auto rickshaws are stuffed with school children going to school. Motor scooters are often seen carrying a family of four, and the road is shared with bicycles, pedestrians, stray dogs and cows. Sound Horn OK! is one of the various signs that are often painted in bright colors on the backs of lorries. This is meant to indicate a particular style of driving in which one beeps their horn in order to say “I’m here and I’m passing you”. This limited edition rhyming children's book tells the tale of the various wheeled vehicles seen on the roads in India. Read to the last page to encounter the cacophony of sound that is the quintessential Indian driving experience.
1600
Gules
Gules, meaning reddish, begins with a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, “On a field sable, the letter ‘A’ gules.” I was inspired by the novel and especially by this quote, to create an artist book with the theme of adultery. The concept of this limited edition artist book marries text, taken from the answers to a questionnaire on current thoughts regarding adultery, with photos of subjects wearing an embroidered scarlet letter. In order to capture precise expressions I used a photo transfer process to print the image onto linoleum blocks for carving. Both block printed images and letterpress text are bound into separate books and hinged together in a do-si-do binding with oak covers. Made possible with support from the Caxton Club of Chicago.
2000
My Curiosity Overwhelmed My Trepidation
The title of this work is taken from a quote by Keith Cheng, who said this when asked about his experiments isolating the color gene in zebra fish and the possible repercussions related to race and skin color. This series of prints, bound into an oversized book form, melds the language of the circus poster, both verbal and pictorial, with current events in science. The pages of this artist book are a visual history of the way animals are being used for scientific purposes. Innovations in science are some of the top stories in the news. Just yesterday, scientists were creating copies of mammals, today they create new genetically altered animals, and tomorrow the unthinkable will be made real. The form of the circus poster, with its capacity to attract attention and exaggerate reality, displays and highlights today’s scientific curiosities. The original wooden block matrix has been repurposed as the cover of this unique artist book.
5000
Individual posters available at 250
Frog 3 of 6 available
Goat 3 of 6 available
Mouse 3 of 6 available
Maggie's Text Poster 7 of 10 available
Billboard 72 x 80 made of six posters $800 4 of 6 available