On the Edge of Nothingness
Hastings Museum presents an exhibition of works from Jo Israel’s After Image series.
These works are sourced from the antiquated pages of illustrated Victorian books, collected by the artist over several years. In many of these books the printer’s ink used to create the pictorial engravings has gradually leaked through the page, bleeding onto its blank reverse, creating the appearance of an imperfectly replicated, spectral double.
Emerging from an alchemical process combining darkness and unstable environmental conditions, these are images formed in a journey through time. Israel describes these works as ”incredibly long exposures”. The act of removing the imprinted page from the book represents, for her, the moment of the image’s completion. She describes seeing these shadow imprints as akin to seeing in the dark, where vision plays tricks on itself and where one begins to mistrust what one sees.
As well as travelling backwards, through the paper, the Victorian printer’s ink can also seep forward, onto the very thin pieces of tissue paper originally used to protect the engravings from damage. These delicate, veil-like After Images have an altogether different atmosphere, suggestive of haunted landscapes, revenants and spectral visions. Israel feels that these tissue paper works lie at the very heart of the series and allow us to experience images at their most fragile, ethereal and ambiguous – images on the edge of nothingness.
Jo Israel (born 1975, UK) studied at the University of Huddersfield. She lives in Hastings.On The Edge of Nothingness shows at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery from 20 July to 6 October.
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