Nineteen : or compilation box of zines, 2017 – 2018

Printed card box in the form of a giant matchbox, 160mm x 230 mm x 45 mm, containing 19 handmade zines by the two artists created in 2017 and 2018. Created in an edition of 5 boxed sets hand lettered title card. This is set number 4, all the editioned zines are also edition number 4. All the zines are initalled in pen by the artists.

The zines include :

1. No longer six feet under. Edition of 100
2. I think all the world is falling. Edition of 100
3. Disrupted and rumpled. Edition of 100
4. Dim wood, spark bright. Edition of 100
5. A warmed pebble in my hand. Edition of 100
6. Take a lesson from the ground. Edition of 100
7. Flipped and flightless. Edition of 100
8. Duck in, duck out. Edition of 100
9. Dove love wash. Edition of 100
10. Second museum sketches (Autumn). Edition of 100
11. It was a familiar pattern. Edition of 60
12. Your gelatine silver print, in the shape of the full moon. Edition of 100
13. Round, circle, dot. Edition of 100
14. Pattern. Edition of 100
15. Winged. Edition of 100
16. Limbed. Edition of 100
17. Paw Pad Path. Edition of 100
18. Here, there. Edition of 100
19. Looped. No edition.

‘We are besotted with paper for its adaptable, foldable, cut-able, concealable, revealing nature. In our artists’ books, prints, zines, drawings, and collages, we use an armoury of play, humour, and perhaps the poetic too, with intent to lure you closer. The animal is oft present and easily detectable, the centre of our paper stage. Hard to miss, over here and over there, the animal runs up hills, scales rooftops, and sometimes appears to take flight. Gliding through a scene it is too large to be contained within or perhaps too manmade to call home, that it has a tail or feathers or furred muzzle is not solely why its form appears. For us, the animal is there to question our very behaviour, those moral principles one governs the self by, and to explore our relationship with the natural world. The words of Gogol whisper in the ear, “the longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.” And so, we leave our scenes open-ended, inviting you to ponder and perhaps find that things are not always as they first appear.’ – Artists’ statement

The contemporary artists’ books of Gracia & Louise are represented in the collections of Artspace Mackay; Bibliotheca Librorum Apud Artificem; Deakin University Library; Melbourne Museum; Melbourne University Library; Monash University Library; Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery; National Gallery of Australia; National Gallery of Victoria; National Library of Australia; RMIT University Library; State Library of New South Wales; State Library of Victoria; State Library of Queensland; Tate (UK); University of the West of England (UK).

Four of the five boxed sets Nineteen are held in the collections of the National Library of Australia, State Library of Victoria, State Library of New South Wales and University of Melbourne.

This is the only example in private hands.