REVELATION

I met Frances and Nicolas McDowall many times over the years at book fairs where the Old Stile Press would have a regular stand, richly stocked with their many publications. I occasionally took a small stand at specialised fairs to show a few of my livres d’artiste and though the OSP is a proper publishing/fine printing Press and what I do is entirely different, we admired each other’s work and ethos and became good friends.

Some time in the 1990s Nicolas asked if there was a text I’d be inspired to illustrate which could become a new OSP limited edition book. I don’t remember whether I thought long and hard about this or whether the Book of Revelation shot up out of the blue like a whale but that’s what I chose and Nicolas agreed it would be an exciting project. 
 

This famous Biblical text has always seemed hypnotic to me, pulling you into the vision which is sweeping John’s mind like a tsunami. I wanted to portray the sense of headlong rushing words and images and decided to make collages out of the whole text, cut up and overlapping, with black line drawings over the top. My images were made into polymer relief blocks and hand-printed by Nicolas in black. There was no need for typesetting since the collaged text is incorporated with the images.

The Revelation of Saint John the Divine, visually interpreted by NdA, was published in a limited edition of 150 copies in 1999. A few copies are still available at £295 from the Old Stile Press - an incredibly low price for, if I say so myself, a stunning production: 38 original prints in a beautiful triptych binding.

click on the thumbnails in the link below to enlarge the images

http://www.oldstilepress.com/…/the-revelation-of-saint-joh…/