#florianroithmayr

Waves by Florian Roithmayr

Elasticity, Fracture & Flow by Rowena Hughes

click here to purchase either book

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Each artist takes a different approach to using existing printed matter to create new books. Florian Roithmayr’s Waves is a complex collage of segments compiled to reveal connections between disparate source materials. The structure of the book embodies the nature of waves themselves, repetitively dazzling and disorientating the reader. Whereas Rowena Hughes’s Elasticity, Fracture & Flow is a form of palimpsest, superimposing extracts from a scientific text to write a form of concrete poetry. Each phrase is extracted from the text on the page directly beneath, attempting to unearth the affective or aesthetic content from a supposedly objective scientific text — within even the driest most technical texts there are phrases that evoke visual, emotional or sensual experiences.

Florian Roithmayr’s book Waves is the first of a series of books tracing natural phenomena. It is a compendium bringing together texts from over two hundred writers. As in comparative literature, different voices and descriptions accumulate to form their own new narrative across science writing and literature, telling the story of how waves are imagined across different contexts and how they resonate as energy, metaphor, image or feeling.

Rowena Hughes's book was chosen for its title – Elasticity, Fracture & Flow – referring to properties of matter, qualities of language as well as states of mind. It has a motif of a twisted loop recurring in many permutations and layered with elements of drawing, a process moving backwards and forwards between the digital and analogue using an interplay of intention and chance, a creative freedom within constraints.

She has been making artist’s books for a number of years, finding old physics textbooks, removing each page and then printing or drawing on to each page before rebinding them in the original cover. This is the first time she has reproduced one of these unique books as a small edition.

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Waves by Florian Roithmayr Softcover, b/w, 128pp 120 x 165 mm Printed in an edition of 150 €15 

Elasticity, Fracture & Flow by Rowena Hughes Cloth-bound, hardcover, full colour, 168pp 140 x 204 mm Printed in an edition of 150 €30

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Florian Roithmayr developed his book Waves at Daedalus Street in Athens during a research residency in 2020 supported by Arts Council England. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds and Associate Professor of Art at the University of Reading. Exhibitions of his work include solo presentations at Camden Arts Centre, Bloomberg space and Kettle’s Yard. His book, Aftercast, was published by Tenderbooks, London (2018), designed by Sara De Bondt Studios.

Rowena Hughes’s book works have been exhibited at Belmacz, the ICA, IMT, BreeseLittle galleries in London, Gebruder Lehmann Berlin, Arch Athens and Fotogalerie Vienna amongst others. Her sculptural work is currently on view as part of inaspettatamente (Unexpectedly) at Cloud Seven in Brussels, works from the Frédéric de Goldschmidt’s collection curated by the ghost of Alighiero Boetti.

A joint book launch and reading by Florian Roithmayr and Sophy Downes was hosted by Radio Athènes on Friday 17th December 2021

Sophy Downes is a classical archaeologist, who specialises in Achaemenid Persia. She grew up in Cambridge and now lives in Rome, where she teaches archaeology by day, writes by night, and stalks the Romantic poets whenever possible. She studied at the University of Esfahan and held a fellowship at the British Institute of Persian Studies in Tehran. Her writing has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, Timeless Travels and Broken Sleep Books.

Elasticity, Fracture & Flow by Rowena Hughes

Waves by Florian Roithmayr

Joint book launch and reading by Florian Roithmayr and Sophy Downes hosted by Radio Athènes 

Friday 17th December 2021 5 - 8pm

Radio Athènes, 15 Petraki Street, Athens 10563

Each artist takes a different approach to using existing printed matter to create new books. Florian Roithmayr's Waves is a complex collage of segments carefully selected and compiled to offer new insights into the subject matter and reveal connections between disparate source materials. The structure of the book embodies the nature of waves themselves, repetitively dazzling and disorientating the reader. Whereas, Rowena Hughes’s Elasticity, Fracture & Flow is a form of palimpsest, superimposing extracts from a scientific text to write a form of concrete poetry. Layering different forms of knowledge; a rational, empirical and purportedly objective way of understanding the world and a more intuitive and unquantifiable approach.

Florian Roithmayr’s book on waves is the first of a series of books tracing natural phenomena. Waves is a compendium bringing together texts from over two hundred writers. As in comparative literature, different voices and descriptions accumulate to form their own new narrative across science writing and literature, telling the story of how waves are imagined across different contexts and how they might figure as energy, force, picture, attitude or ambition.

Florian works with sculpture to generate and trace exchanges between bodies, between bodies and materials, and between materials. The aim is to register the consequences of one surface or material yielding another through capturing the unexpected gestures that occur in the gap between mold and cast. In this interstitial space, occurrences often remain unforeseeable and unaccountable.

• ~ ~ ~ •

Rowena Hughes has been making artist’s books for a number of years, finding old physics textbooks, removing each page and then printing or drawing on to each page before rebinding them in the original cover. This is the first time she has reproduced one of these unique books as a small edition.

Every text is extracted from the original scientific text on the page directly beneath, this process is attempting to unearth the affective or aesthetic content from a supposedly objective scientific text — within even the driest most technical texts there are phrases that provoke the visual imagination or evoke emotional or sensual experiences.

For this book she photographed an elastic band repeatedly, this motif of a twisted loop, distorted and recurring in many permutations is layered with elements of drawing, a process moving backwards and forwards between the digital and analogue and the interplay of intention and chance. Within this set of ‘rules’ there is freedom for playfulness and intuitive decision making, a creative freedom within constraints.

This book was chosen for its title, Elasticity, Fracture & Flow referring to properties of matter related to her sculptures but also seeming to refer to qualities of language — a text can flow or be fractured/ disrupted, meaning can be stretched or ambiguous — as well as to states of mind, in psychology 'flow' is a state of being immersed in a creative activity, the original text refers often to 'stress and strain' anxious or fractious states of mind and 'elasticity' points to the mind’s plasticity or ability to reconfigure.

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Waves by Florian Roithmayr

Softcover, 128pp

120 x 165 mm

Printed in an edition of 150

€15

Elasticity, Fracture & Flow by Rowena Hughes

Cloth-bound, hardcover 168pp

140 x 204 mm

Printed in an edition of 150

€35

Florian Roithmayr with, and, or, without

12 December 2015 - 6 March 2016

Florian Roithmayr presented a new body of work exhibiting at the Camden Arts Centre. 

WITH, AND, OR WITHOUT. CAMDEN ARTS CENTRE, 2016 

The third and final day of Insights Winter Art School in December 2016 covered Fine Art and Ceramic pathways with artists Lucy Joyce and Katie Spragg. We visited the Florian Roithmayr and Rose English exhibitions. We had 30 participants aged 15 - 25 years attend over the 3 weeks of the course.

“Keep practicing, keep meeting artists, keep participating in artistic events.”

“Discovering different disciplines, meeting artists and practicing.”

“Making new friends and learning new things I never knew.”