View a selection of digital images in the Yale Center for British Art's online catalogue
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/orbis:10113670
Classification:
Three-Dimensional Artifacts
Notes:
"The images in these reference books are amazing ... The beetles were larger than life size which in some ways makes them less frightening. They also have a sweetie-like quality in their brightly coloured appearance. I wanted to play with the juxtaposition of knowing what they are (harmless, paper cut-outs) that have somehow come alive and are burrowing their way out of the book. I hope it evokes a suspension of disbelief ... The negative spaces left in the books once I have cut the images out are equally as important as the images themselves. It is amazing to me that a 2-dimensional image can be given so much life just by cutting it out."--Artist's statement.Title and date of creation from artist's statement.Of green leaf, bird, and flower: artists' books and the natural world, p. 53Selected exhibitions: "'Of Green Leaf, Bird, and Flower': Artists' Books and the Natural World" (Yale Center for British Art, May 15 - August 10, 2014).BAC: British Art Center copy is initialed and dated by Cockburn.An artist's book/altered book, created from a copy of Josef Rudolph Winkler's A book of beetles (London : Spring Books, 1965). From this published work, Cockburn cuts out pictures of beetles and partially folds them lengthwise to give the pieces a three-dimensional structure, and then places the beetles over and between the pages of the original book (which is fixed in an open position). The finished sculptural work gives the impression that the beetles are scattering out from the pages of the book.
Exhibition History:
"Of Green Leaf, Bird, and Flower" : Artists' Books and the Natural World (Yale Center for British Art, May 15, 2014-August 10, 2014)
Subject Terms:
Beetles -- Pictorial works. | Paper work -- Great Britain -- Specimens. | Altered books -- Specimens. | Women in natural history.
