Recent Important Events

Chanctonbury Ring (after the Hurricane), oil on canvas

A Happy Dada Christmas / Winter Festival to Everyone.

Since the Whitechapel Art Book Fair in September 2010, I've been asked to exhibit my creative typography at the Here Gallery in Bristol, and my poetic photobooks Thames - The London River and The East London Line - An Elegaic Meta-landscape have been bought by the National Art Library at the V&A and the University of the Creative Arts respectively. I've also had a lot of creative-typography commissions.

My projects for 2011 include a poetic photobook about the Borough Market in Southwark, completing my Isaac Rosenberg artist's book which has been in preparation for a long time, and mounting an exhibition of my paintings in Lewes.

Isaac Rosenberg & More Creative Typography

Here are more images of recent work I've been doing on my wooden hand press (Common Press). The second is Variations on a Capital 'E' (including one lower case 'e'), using my own hand-cut 17th Century character (4.5 inches high) taken from Moxon. Red was frequently used for titling in early printed books.

The first and third are the wood block and first progress proof respectively of a woodcut I'm doing for my Rosenberg book (Isaac Rosenberg, the artist and poet). This block, which I cut and proofed today, is about 12 x 18 inches and is thin plywood so I will have to build it up to type-height if I print it with a page of text.

Artwave, artist's books nearing completion - Rosenberg & East London Line

Isaac Rosenberg - see Rosenberg artist's book below


Whitechapel UndergrounD Station - see East London Line artist's book below


I'm demonstrating the printing press (the wooden common press) in the Market Tower, Lewes, during Lewes's Artwave Festival every afternoon from Friday 28 August to Friday 4 September inclusive.

As well as the Tom Paine material, I'm also using the press to print the text and blocks of some of my own artist's poem & image books, including Rosenberg (the Whitechapel poet and artist, who was killed in the First World War), and The East London Line (inspired by the current redevelopment of the old East London Railway from Shoreditch through (or rather under) Whitechapel, Shadwell, Wapping, Rotherhithe and Surrey Docks to New Cross and New Cross Gate).

Camden Lock, Chalk Farm, The Lock Tavern

The Lock Tavern, Chalk Farm Road

The Stables Market, Chalk Farm Road

On Tuesday (1st April) and yesterday (3rd April) I was doing a lot more fieldwork in the Euston - Camden - Chalk Farm area for my Euston Arch artist's book / poetic text project, and I've been regularly dropping in to The Lock Tavern (formerly the Wellington Arms and the Railway Tavern) for a pint of Peroni after a lot of footslogging. A pity about the price of beer these days, but apart from that The Lock Tavern's a great pub with a fantastic music scene. Across the road is the Stables Market in the old railway goods depot - visually brilliant with all sorts of Punk - Goth - Lolita - Burlesque outfits. I took some photos with my old 35mm camera as my digital camera malfunctioned last week (also here at Chalk Farm while I was taking photos of the remaining early 19th century houses on Chalk Farm Road), and when I've had them processed I'll scan them and put some images on the blog.

Like everywhere, the greed of property owners and developers is wrecking the subtle fabric and texture of much of our towns and cities, and I fear this is happening at Camden Market as well. I was also aware of it around the Whitechapel Gallery yesterday evening, where I went to a talk by Jean Moorcroft-Wilson about her new biography of Isaac Rosenberg (see elsewhere in this blog for images of my developing Rosenberg project). Along the main roads in Whitechapel the old buildings are disappearing at a rapid rate, and the sense of place and community is being lost. Even Tracy Emin, who's bought an old weaver's house in Spitalfields, is complaining about the havoc being created by over-development. My Kings Cross and Thames books were both very much concerned with the human scale and visual and material texture of urban landscape (Rilke said that we find out about ourselves from things we create - our landscape), and if our recent inhuman creations are anything to go by, we have a hell of a problem!

Out of control? Where is local democracy? And even then, local authorities are conspiring with developers to privatise public spaces. Whole areas of city centres being sold off and effectively lost to the people at large. Public streets being turned into gated commercial communities, with private security guards. I hear that parts of Liverpool and London's Chinatown and Camberwell have suffered, or are suffering, in this way (see The Guardian last Saturday). Tom Paine would have had something to say about all this, I'm sure. What unholy deal has 'New Labour' done with the big money? Too late to reclaim the streets?

Peter Chasseaud's Isaac Rosenberg artist's book, work in progress

I'm going to post images of work-in-progress on the Rosenberg book as they develop. Here is a jumble of cut stencils and printed test pages. The white shapes lying on the Dead Man's Dump page (top left) are the remnants of a trees stencil I was cutting; I left them lying on the page by accident, and I thought they looked good just like this! See also below.

This image utilises two stencils: the grey-green background one of the trees, and the dark red foreground one of the two soldiers. I'll probably use others to create a more layered image.

Peter Chasseaud at Modern Works on Paper Fair, Royal Academy, 30 Jan to 3 Feb 2008

I am showing my artist's books in the 'Covered' section of the Modern Works on Paper Fair at The Royal Academy of Arts, 6 Burlington Gardens, on the following dates:

Wednesday 30 Jan 3pm - 9.30 pm (Preview, by invitation only)
Thursday 31 Jan 11 am - 9 pm
Friday 1 Feb 11 am - 8.30 pm
Saturday 2 Feb 11 am - 6 pm
Sunday 3 Feb 11 am - 5.30 pm

My artist's books will include:
Kings Cross
Thames - The London River
Afghanistan - A Journey
Rosenberg (work in progress, inspired by Isaac Rosenberg's 1914-18 poems)

Peter Chasseaud, Altazimuth Press, at Modern Works on Paper Fair 2008

Peter Chasseaud / Altazimuth Press

I'm showing my artist's books at

The Modern Works on Paper Art Fair

The Royal Academy of Arts

6 Burlington Gardens, London,

I will be on Stand 8 in the 'Covered' section devoted to artists' books.

The dates of the Fair are:
Wed 30th Jan, 3-9.30 (Preview); Thur 31st Jan, 11-9; Fri 1st Feb, 11-8.30; Sat 2nd Feb, 11-6;

Sun 3rd Feb, 11-5.30

Work on show will include the following:

Kings Cross

Thames - The London River

Afghanistan - A Journey

Rosenberg (work in progress)

Peter Chasseaud, Rosenberg page images

Rosenberg artist's book by Peter Chasseaud; work in progress December 2007. Here are images of some of the pages I'm currently working on. The format is approx. 15 x 20 inches (37 x 50 cm).
This book is very different from my earlier artist's books, which combined photographic images with my poetic texts. In the Rosenberg book I'm experimenting with a mixture of pochoir (stencil), hand-painting using acrylic paint, and mixed-media (paper, canvas, metal, wood, etc.), on Khadi hand-made paper, which has a lovely weight and texture. The stencilling brings to mind the utilitarian lettering on trench nameboards and on shells, boxes of ammunition, rations, etc. Some of the sheets are white, and others grey-black. Although the book will incorporate the texts of some of Isaac Rosenberg's poems, I am concentrating on the overall design and 'objectness' of the book - its materiality - and in particular the creation of appropriate images. I like the immediacy of bold and simple signs and geometric shapes, such as were used by the Dada and Constructivist artists of the early 20th century - the period of Rosenberg's war service. I'm also experimenting with incorporating maps and other war documents and materials into the pages. The book can be seen on my stand in the 'Covered' section of the British Works on Paper Fair at Burlington House, London, 31st Jan - 1st Feb 2008 (PV evening 30th Jan).

Peter Chasseaud, Isaac Rosenberg images at LAB07

Images of work-in-progress (acrylic paint and pochoir on Khadi hand-made paper) for my new artist's book inspired by the war poetry of Isaac Rosenberg. The completed book, which commemorates the 90th anniversary of Rosenberg's death in action on the Western Front in early 1918, will be launched at the Modern Works on Paper Fair at Burlington House (behind the Royal Academy), London, at the end of January. I am also planning to show work-in-progress towards my new book/installation (working title 'The Erotic Cabinet').

Dates for the Works on Paper Fair are:

Wed 30 Jan (evening only - Private View)

Thurs 31 Jan

Fri 1 Feb

Sat 2 Feb

Sun 3 Feb

My work will be on show in the part of the Fair dealing with artists' books, called 'Covered'.

Isaac Rosenberg, Marseilles, Lausanne

Photo of me painting in my studio during the Phoenix Open in October 2007. Photo credit: David Flindall.

I'm currently working on a new artists book inspired by the poems of Isaac Rosenberg. I hope to have some details of this ready for the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair at Oxford Brooks University on Sat 3rd and Sun 4th November, and certainly by the London Artists Book Fair (LAB'07) at the ICA at the end of November. I'll have some speciment pages of text and images, and a specification, to look at.

I'll also be showing my existing artists books:

Kings Cross (2004)

Thames - The London River (2005)

Afghanistan - A Journey (2007)

and my smaller book about my Willows project (Willow/Wilg/Weide/Saule, 2007).

You can find out more about these books and projects elsewhere in my blog.

MARSEILLE & LAUSANNE

With Carolyn Trant (Parvenu Press), I recently travelled to Marseille for the annual book fair, which had a big artist books section organised by Atelier Vis-a-Vis, where we both had stands at the 'English Desk' showing our own artists books. Atelier Vis-a-Vis bought work from both of us, and in addition I sold a copy of my Afganistan-A Jouney book to a visitor to the fair. It was great to be able to visit Atelier Vis-a-Vis and hear of their incredibly ambitious plans for the future, including a new art school with 150 printing presses! What an amazing place for artists Marseille is! Why can't Britain be like this?

Marseille was wonderful - particularly the old part of the city on the Butte des Moulins, the Panier and Lenche districts, and of course the Bar de la Marine. The town museum by the Bourse was particularly good, with impressive displays, models and reconstructions of the history and archaeolgy of the city - Roman ships, amphorae filled with sardines and wine, a huge jar of grain, potteries, etc. Glorious sunshine most days, but a cold wind announcing the onset of autumn if not winter. Great restaurants here - particularly if you like fish. Travel by Eurostar and TGV as we did and (provided its daylight) you see a lot of the wonderful French countryside.

From Marseille we took the TGV to Geneva and changed for Lausanne, where we arrived in a freezing wind and stayed in the Backpacker Guesthouse with a wonderful 4th floor view of the historic railway station. In Lausanne we found, or were taken to, all the right places, including the Musee de l'Art Brut, the Romand restaurant, the Maharajah's Punjabi restaurant, and an Erotic Cabinet in a bookshop and art gallery. Our host in Lausanne was Stephane Fretz, of Art and Fiction publishers, and we were privileged to see the Art and Fiction office and studio and meet Stephane's colleagues there.

After this it was TGV back to Paris and a congested and claustrophobic Eurostar (with several non-working loos) to London. Now for the Oxford book fair! (and the LAB'07!).