School of Art, Media and Design, UWE Bristol:
Artists’ Books
Carrie Galbraith
7th March – 9th April 2006
After several years in the commercial arts as a graphic designer and art director, Carrie Galbraith returned to the studio, receiving her MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She was awarded a Post Graduate Fellowship to teach printmaking and book arts at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy, and was invited to renew her fellowship for a total of 3 years. In 2004/2005 she was a Fulbright Scholar in Romania, where she taught Book Arts and Professional Practices at two universities as well as facilitated an exchange show between the University of the Arts in Timisoara, Romania and the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. From September to December 2005, she was Artist-In-Residence at Seacourt Print Workshop in Bangor.
A native Californian, Carrie has driven around 47 of the 50 states, sailed across the Pacific Ocean, taught sailing in Hawaii, studied art in Poland and traveled by bus and train throughout Eastern Europe, the Balkans and, most recently, Turkey.
An avid journaler, she creates prints and books using drawing, printmaking and photography combined with her lifelong interest in history and archeology. She has been active in group and solo shows in Europe and America and publishes her artists’ books under the imprint of Ketone Press. Her work is in public and private collections in Europe and America including Columbia University, The University of California at Berkeley, The National Library in Rome and the Tate Britain.
Notes on the Work:
One of the many things that continues to call me to the next horizon is the way people build monuments in an effort to tell their story and how these narrative monuments change through the passage of time and the process of history
The ghosts of civilizations, as found in artifacts and ruins, reflect both personal and collective loss. My interest is the theme of history and memory and stems from my own losses, as understood and interpreted in the context of collective history as found in archeological sites. The loss of family leaves ruins in the form of fragmented, and often unfathomable, memories. By combining drawing, printmaking, photography, digital imaging and writing, I explore the narratives found in these memories and inexplicable remains of the past through the book form.
My travels serve to inform the work through observation and response to the ruins with my own memories, real and imagined. In documenting my journeys, be they long train or bus trips, long drives, or nightly dreams, I act as an archeologist in the excavation of the simplest of details. The broken windows of an empty apartment in Venice invoke the memories of a house briefly lived in childhood. The soft faded frescoes on the walls of houses in Pompeii speak directly to the soft faded photographs found in my grandmother’s scrapbooks.
The use of multiple narrative opens up the possibility for several voices to inhabit one book, creating an overlap of texts and images that weaves these historical and autobiographical fragments into a cohesive fabric, unveiling the truth hidden in the ruins.
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