An art installation of sculpted books depicting elements of nature is featured at the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center in Hilo.
The exhibit “Whorl” captures the essence of humans and nature through book sculptures. Ten art pieces are on display, accompanied by a digital projection of Kulaniapia Falls.
Hawai‘i-based artist Jacqueline Rush Lee specializes in mixed media and is originally from Northern Ireland. She said she accidentally stumbled upon using books as an art form while working on ceramics.
“What happened to the book was so transformative,” she said. “It inspired me to work with the book form for a number of years.”
She creates the book sculptures by burning them in a kiln to achieve a particular shape, then placing them in trees or tree branches and letting nature shape the art pieces.
One piece in the exhibit is a sculpture in the shape of a tree stump. Rush Lee said she put the books on a stump. The pages of the books are detailed to convey a wooden texture.
If museumgoers look close enough, they can see words on the pages. Rush Lee said she wanted to give viewers an “aha” moment that the sculpture is a book.
“I will take what is a form that we all are familiar with, abstract it, and usually I’ll use a title to infer a meaning or suggest a narrative in which the viewer completes the story of what they think the book is about,” she said. "Because I am a firm believer that everyone brings themselves to an artwork and how they understand it.”
Rush Lee said she uses hard-cover and soft-cover books, and she has also used a Hawai‘i telephone directory book.
She said her other book sculptures look fleshy or like rubble, and she’s particular about where to place the books in nature. She said nature has the last narrative of the sculptures, even if she tries to control it.
“Whorl refers to the basic pattern of the human fingerprint,” she said. “As books generally represent culture, learning and knowledge, these books represent us humans on the planet and our interactions and interconnectedness with nature."
“So this exhibit looks at the precariousness of nature and culture and how we coexist together.”
Rush Lee said despite the world being chaotic in nature, she hopes the exhibit will help people slow down to reflect on what they’re looking at while giving them a sense of peace.
The exhibit is open until May 31. For more information, click here.
