Bogotá, Colombia: Canto Press, 2024. Paperback. Number 13 of 22 copies. A powerful scroll book from Colombian book artist, Maria Carolina Ceballas, about a painful skin condition, resulting anxiety and panic attacks, and the artists' methods for handling her anxiety - including soothing mantras and breathing exercises. The reader must turn the scrolls to read the book, which emits a sound like crackling dry skin. As the book progresses, the words become jagged and interupted with angular illustrations as the author's anxiety increases. The illustrations mimic cracked dry, irritated skin in some places and over-hydrated skin in others - representative of the constant battle the author faces over the course of each day as she deals with chronic and severe eczema. Text in Spanish.

According to the artist: "'Roturas' is about my personal experience with skin issues that have taken me to extremes in anxiety and other psychological issues. The book is a box covered in handmade paper, composed by a scroll hand written in Spanish and painted, and then digitally printed on Japanese paper; a hand carved paper image that has to be seen with light from behind and an embroidered piece on paper. All 3 pieces related to how anxiety works and how to manage." Size: 28 x 13.5 x 6 cm.

Maria is a young Colombian book artist with an interdisciplinary focus. She has exhibited her work in various cities in Colombia, the United States and Japan. She received an MFA in Book Arts at the University of Iowa where she worked as a book conservation technician and digital book design instructor. In her recent artistic practice, she has been exploring traditional book related crafts and applying them to a body of work with creative multilingual writing. ARTB/060924. Fine. More