Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Remember to Die, Remember to Live
Medium: 17 pages, concertina artist book made with inkjet prints on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 188gsm paper
Size: book closed 21 x 21 x 1.5cm, book open 21 x 378cm
Edition of 12: signed and numbered, 2008
Brief Description: An image of Gloria Swanson, photographed in 1924 through a veil of lace by American photographer Edward Steichen, was the starting point for the self-portrait works in Remember to Die, Remember to Live. I wanted to explore personal realities revealed via universal human experiences such as the unfolding of individuality, our links with past and future generations, and meditations on death and nothingness.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Theatre of Embarkation
Medium: 9 pages, concertina artist book in wooden box, book made with Barcham Green handmade paper, inkjet prints on Ilford Galerie paper
Size: box 11 x 8 x 3cm, book open 9.5 x 72cm
Edition of 12: signed and numbered, 2008
Brief Description: The images in Theatre of Embarkation were originally created as gouache paintings on vellum for a concertina book in 1986. The original images were scanned and used to create a new, miniature, editioned book.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Compass of Change
Medium: 72 pages A4 folded to A5, laser printed images and text on Saxton Chardonnay 100gsm with wrap around coil binding and colour printed cover, binding by artist.
Size: book 21 x 16.5 x 1.5cm
Unlimited edition: signed and numbered, 2007
Brief Description: Compass of Change made in 2007 is a smaller, spiral bound version of the 1996 concertina book of the same name, which explores the possible as well as the inevitable. The images contain symbolic references from an archive of the artist’s previous images, as well as diverse source material that has been incorporated and altered.
Visit the ‘Threads’ website to read the short stories: www.diannelongley.com.au/threads/
Dianne Longley – Title of Book:Threads drawn from the past, towards a digital future…
Medium: small suitcase of postcards, book and memorabilia
Size: suitcase closed 17.5 x 23 x 11cm, suitcase open variable display sizes
Edition of 6 : signed and numbered, 2005
Brief Description: This book is a combination of a boxed set of postcard images with narratives, family artifacts and miscellaneous family documents contained in a small suitcase, plus a website. The set of postcards (unlike the pages in a traditional book) resemble a deck of cards that have no prescribed order.
The website of Threads drawn from the past, towards a digital future… reflects the non-linear nature of memory with the home page of the site featuring a chequerboard of visual links to random stories with pictures.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Contingent Ambiguity
Medium: 15 printed pages, folio of hand printed polymergravure and chine collé prints, with letterpress text essay and colophon; printed glassine interleaves
Size: folio box 39 x 38 x 2cm
Edition of 12: signed and numbered, 2002
Brief Description:
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Apperception, a symbolic narrative
Medium: 23 pages, artist book with folded pages, 8 etchings printed intaglio, multi-coloured, onto Japanese Awa paper, letterpress text in magenta, some letterpress pages printedain combination lead type with relief photopolymer plates, pages interleaved with glassine paper, bound in maroon with gold lettering by Anthony Zammit
Size: slipcase 31 x 23 x 2cm, book 30 x 22.5cm
Edition of 30 : second edition, signed and numbered, 2001
Brief Description: This book is a metaphysical quest within which the opposing forces of intuition and the intellect collide, with an eventual reconciliation where each is able to complement the other. The text and image pages are folded, the inner book being Japanese in form, bound in a Western book structure with slipcase.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Cats, Cakes, Clothes and Cups
Medium: boxed set of inkjet printed playing cards, booklet and a silk playing card table cover
Size: box 21.5 x 16 x 4cm, playing cards 9 x 6cm, silk playing card table cover 41 x 39cm, and booklet 20 pages, 20 x 13.5cm, box made by Anthony Zammit, booklet and playing cards by the artist
Edition of 8 : signed and numbered, 1999
Brief Description: This intriging set of inkjet printed playing cards features suits inspired by the artist’s favourite things. Female friends are included as court cards. This boxed set of cards was inspired by the artist’s visit to an historic playing card factory in Belgium in 1990. The booklet lists each card in the suits, and there is a story about the inspiration for each suit, as well as a brief history of playing cards in the west.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Sensory Memorandum
Medium: 32 pages, digital images inkjet printed onto Epson Photo Quality paper and Glama Natural translucent paper, essay laster printed onto 118gsm Pageantry White paper, title and end pages relief printed from photopolymer plate onto Rives BFK 180gsm paper, magenta buckram bookbind with gold text.
Size: book 22 x 26 x 1cm
Edition of 30 : signed and numbered, 1998
Brief Description: Sensory Memorandum began as a meditation on living in a world increasingly dominated by information technology and developed into a personal exploration of what constitutes a large part of our existence, our senses. The book incorporates overlays to blend one page into the next. The images are interspersed with personal experiences or recollections. Some text was interwoven into images to add a literal element to the images.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Compass of Change
Medium: 70 pages, concertina book printed with a Novajet printer from a digital file, with Japanese paper wraparound chemise and slipcase, and dark blue reconstituted leather book covers, binding by Anthony Zammit
Size: slipcase 33.5 x 23.5 x 3.5cm, book open 32 x 1540cm
Edition of 4 : signed and numbered, 1996
Brief Description: Artists through history have used new technologies available to them. This book incorporates electronic media techniques combined with traditional symbolic references. The sources for the symbolic references were an archive of previous images, as well as diverse source material which has been incorporated and altered.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: The Golden Rose
Medium: 20 pages, 10 photopolymer prints relief-printed and hand-coloured, on Velin Arches 300gsm paper, 10 pages of text photocopied onto glassine overlays, booklet of 12 pages, folio in purple buckram with gold text.
Size: folio slipcase 54.5 x 40 x 2cm, prints 53.5 x 39.3cm
Edition of 16: signed and numbered, 1995
Brief Description: The Golden Rose folio was the first to use photopolymer plates. Utilising digital files, the complex though subtle images illuminate stages of life through the language of flowers. From the ‘Dog Rose’, to the ‘Peace Rose’, traditional symbolism is combined with personal symbolism to produce surreal, almost religious images. The folio is evocative of the discipline and silence found in medieval books of hours.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Night Sea Crossing
Medium: 31 pages, book with laser-printed images on Archive Text Laid 120gsm paper and transparency film. The original 9 images were hand-drawn onto scraperboard, scanned and manipulated to create two related, but separate layered images. Binding in green-black buckram with silver text.
Size: book 21.5 x 30.5 x 1cm
Edition of 30 : signed and numbered, 1994
Brief Description: Night Sea Crossing is a reminiscence of what is lost over the course of a life and what is gained. This work is a ‘leave taking’; an opportunity to take a breath, to take stock, and consider the journey so far. By the shore of a river, vignettes from life are played out, showing most recent memories first and distant ones at journey’s end. This sequence of images is a reflection of the journey between life and death.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: A Passage Illuminated
Medium: 18 pages, artist book with 8 etchings printed in dark blue, and 10 relief-printed text pages printed in dark purple, onto Japanese Hodomura paper, Japanese book binding, with blue Japanese paper book covers and gold screenprinted lettering. Endpapers screenprinted with studio logo pattern and dusted iwth gold mica powder.
Size: book 20.5 x 26 x 5cm
Edition of 40 : signed and numbered, 1992
Brief Description: A Passage Illuminated unfolds in rhyming couplets, the parable of an un named girl who falls into the underworld of existence. The accompanying images suggest an existential computer game where self-actualistion is the end prize. The central character moves through the various scenes encountering totmeic animals, along with archetypes such as the Trickster and the Samlet, (two symbolic figures that appear in many of books and prints).
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Apperception, a symbolic narrative
Medium: 20 pages, artist book with relief-printed etched plates, and screenprinted text onto Japanese Kozo paper, Japanese style binding, with screenprinted checked covers by artist.
Size: book 28 x 21 x .5cm, book open 21 x 378cm
Edition of 8: signed and numbered, 1991
Brief Description: This book is a metaphysical quest within which the opposing forces of intuition and the intellect collide, with an eventual reconciliation where each is able to complement the other. There is an image glossary in the opening pages, giving the cast of characters their symbolic meaning.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Aberrant Observance
Medium: 11 sheets, folio made with lithographic prints on Magnani Pescia 200gsm paper, with screenprinted text, bound in black buckram with cream lettering by The Dene Bindery.
Size: folio slipcase 40 x 29 x 1.5cm, folio sheets 39 x 29cm
Edition of 16: signed and numbered, 1989
Brief Description: Aberrant Observance employs symbolic language of text and image to describe stages of a metaphysical quest. The images respond to the notion of life as a journey, and to what is possible and what is inevitable. The theatre-like series of images suggest that life is a strange play. As a play has a beginning and an end, in Aberrant Observance, the culmination is self-knowledge.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Quest
Medium: 8 pages, concertina artist book made with drypoint prints on Velin Cuve Rives 250gsm paper, hand-colouring, letraset text, black and gold check Japanese paper covers. Boxes made by Banksia Bindery, and then decorated with gold leaf.
Size: box 10.5 x 7.5 x 2cm, book open 9 x 60cm
Edition of 8 : signed and numbered, 1989
Brief Description: Quest is a miniature book incorporating symbolism to describe stages of a metaphysical quest. The images respond to the notion of life as a journey, and to what is possible and what is inevitable.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Mending before Ending
Medium: 4 prints, concertina artist book with etchings printed onto Velin Cuve BFK Rives 300gsm paper, hand-stitching, with cream silk slipcase
Size: silk folio 32 x 19.5 x 5cm, prints 29.5 x 16.5cm
Edition of 8 : signed and numbered, 1984
Brief Description: Mending before Ending is a meditation on the fraglity of being. the silk cover alludes to the delicacy of its contents. Containing no text, the stitched hand-printed etchings reflect on the idea of change and on the desire to sustain the past by repairing rather than simply giving way to the new.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: Deanin‘s Dreams
Medium: 32 pages, text hand-written and offset printed, 10 etchings with hand-colouring, all pages printed on Velin Arches 200gsm paper, book and slipcase in dark blue buckram with silver lettering.
Size: slipcase 30 x 22 x 2cm, book pages 29 x 22cm
Edition of 25 : signed and numbered, 1981
Brief Description: Deanin’s Dreams was inspired by an interest in Cabalistic mysticism, ritual magic and dream symbolism. It involves a sleeping Deanin, wose dreams are gradually unravelled by a mysterious Prince. The story achieves its resolution through the characters’ active participation in the world of dreams. The apparent playful abstractions and the accompanying images belie their structured composition.
Dianne Longley – Title of Book: The Glass Ball
Medium: 23 pages, book with offset printed hand-written text, 8 etchings printed in sepia on Velin Cuve 175gsm paper, bound in dark brown buckram with gold lettering.
Size: book 26.5 x 21.5 x 1.5cm, pages 26.5 x 21cm
Edition of 20 : signed and numbered, 1978
Brief Description: The Glass Ball is a narrative complemented by abstract and highly symbolic images. Within a Jungian framework, we discover the story of a lonely child who, having discovered a magic clearing in the woods, embarks upon a journey of awakening and self awareness. This is the beginning of work based around the concept of ‘self’ and ‘individuation’.