Copts
Sewanee, TN: Dorothy Simpson Krause, 2011. Hardcover. A unique artist's book from noted book artist Dorothy Simpson Krause and signed by her. She is a painter, collage artist and printmaker who incorporates digital mixed media into her art. Her work is exhibited regularly in galleries and museums and featured in numerous current periodicals and books. In her artist's statement she says: "My work includes large scale mixed media pieces, artist books and book-like objects that bridge between these two forms. It embeds archetypal symbols and fragments of image and text in multiple layers of texture and meaning. It combines the humblest of materials, plaster, tar, wax and pigment, with the latest in technology to evoke the past and herald the future. My art-making is an integrated mode of inquiry that links concept and media in an ongoing dialogue – a visible means of exploring meaning." Copts are a Christian ethnoreligious group indigenous to North Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt and Sudan since antiquity. Most ethnic Copts are Coptic Oriental Orthodox Christians. They are the largest Christian denomination in Egypt and the Middle East, as well as in Sudan and Libya. They had the oldest and largest Christian communities in the Middle East. From the 4th to the 6th century Copts were the majority religion in Roman Egypt. According to ancient tradition, Christianity was introduced to the Egyptians by Saint Mark in Alexandria around 42 AD. Today they make up somewhere between 5 and 20 percent of the population of Islamic Egypt where they face marginalization, discrimination and persecution. This Coptic bound book uses well-known book artist Daniel Essig's binding variant with wood covers. The front covers have cutout openings protected by acrylic that display small scarab artifacts. The paper and mica pages are collaged with found materials and alcohol gel transfers that incorporate distressed images of saints and other ephemera. The book is housed in a vintage metal box decorated with mica and a metal scarab on the front cover and a black elaborate cross on the back of the cover. This is a fascinating production in fine condition. The book measures 5 x 3.5 x 2 inches. The metal box measures 6 x 4.5 x 3 inches. Unpaginated [208 pages] ARTB/061223. Fine. More