Gestures

Townsville : Lyre Bird Press and Melbourne : Zimmer Editions, 2005. Folio (525 x 415 mm), portfolio with series of handpainted leaves in gouache by Tate Adams, cut on the fore-edge to different depths, to produce a series of overlapping designs, colophon and two further screenprints, one double page, with screenprinted text by Jenny Zimmer, housed within cloth covered archival box by Norbert Herold with pictorial inlay. Edition limited to 20 signed copies, this being no. 20.

Colophon: ‘This book is the fourth in a series of limited edition artists’ books published by the Lyre Bird Press, Townsville, Queensland in collaboration with Zimmer Editions, Melbourne, Victoria. The edition comprises 20 copies and each is signed and numbered by the artist. Tate Adams’ Gestural gouaches were painted in his Townsville studio in 2004. The text, by Jenny Zimmer, has been screen-printed on 270 gsm BFK Rives by Larry Rawling in his studio in Kinglake West. The book’s design follows an original concept for the series provided by Tate Adams. The typography is by Charles Teuma. Norbert Herold created the fine binding.’

Tate Adams strips away all design elements to leave the organic, vigorous motions of a brush with black gouache ink making their marks on rich rag paper. In this series of carefully composed yet seemingly spontaneous splashes of paint, Adams creates a series of visual gestures which call attention to the unnoticed ways we communicate and signal to each other.