A C Berkheiser
Conversations on Plaques and Tangles
Conversations on Plaques and Tangles is part of the Alzheimer's series, a grouping of works that address issues of mental disease as told through destructive weather events. While some include text, others rely on the writing of imagery to convey the same master narrative.
Mimicking the effects of Alzheimer's disease on the relationship of patient and caregiver, an identical poem exists in two separate realities. One path is stationary, yet progressively deteriorates as the book nears its end. Another path shadows the first, moving and struggling to understand the few words it can. Never is the content fully comprehensible.
Simultaneously, abstracted images of natural disasters invade the page space, closing out the ability for words to exist. The book itself falls victim to the disease, allowing the reader to experience its signature confusion, frustration and darkness.
Conversations on Plaques and Tangles
A C Berkheiser
London, 2003
published by the artist
courtesy of Camberwell College of Arts Library, Special Collections
View Conversations on Plaques and Tangles (click images to cycle through)
A C Berkheiser is a primarily text-based artist generating multiple hand-produced bookworks and supportive print design elements. Her work is exhibited internationally and resides in numerous private collections, including London's Tate Britain and the collection of the Wellcome Trust. The Alzheimer's series earned Berkheiser “The Murton/Crawford Prize for Bookart” and her work was recently reviewed in Printmaking Today by Emma Hill. Amongst a list of current exhibitions, her work will tour with 'Arcadia id est: artists' books, nature and the landscape' over the next two years, appearing at London's Eagle Gallery in November 2005 and Newcastle's BALTIC in February 2006.
For information on obtaining Berkheiser's works, please visit http://www.pursuitofac.com or email ac@pursuitofac.com.