Art Journal - 'Reading material'

"Christopher Fleming layers imagery, text and found print, making the pages of his book stiff with both material and reference." - Phil Owen, Arnolfini

The title ‘reading/material’ is my take on Robert Smithson’s idea of materiality in writing: ‘language to be looked at and/or things to be read’.

I’m interested in impermanence. The aged surfaces of walls point to this, and I’m trying to reflect that in some way by recreating the weathered and worn surfaces of walls and buildings.

I like combining writing with collage and painting, using inexpensive material and ephemera along with my own photographs.

It’s a very formal way of working as I think about shapes, lines, colour and textures.

I’m subverting the language of advertising and newspaper/magazine headlines, using bold typeface for my own lyrical writing.

Each double page spread in my book becomes an experiment with page design and layout and the relationship between words and images.

The use of correction fluid in this type of work along with electrical insulating tape has, I feel, an implied parallel with writing and process.

I think of the way in which I'm editing my own writing.

The book is not a literal diary with any clearly intended narrative. Sometimes I write things I'm not comfortable with people reading so I might erase or cover up these parts.


Of course, using tape and correction fluid is also a way of covering a surface for visual effect and an immediate way of adding colour and texture.
Narratives can emerge whether intended or not- depending on how the work is read.