Pictured: Author Susana Reisman (right) and publisher Nadine Touma (left) receive their award at the Bologna Children's Book Fair.
A BIG Congratulations to Circuit Gallery artist Susana Reisman whose first book, Time Flies (Dar Onboz, 2009), is receiving important international recognition.
In December 2009, Time Flies won in the “New Publications” category at the CJ Picture Book Festival is Seoul, Korea.
Review:
A silent book with no words, using photographs of the hands and numbers of different watches to create a world where time stands still, to reconstruct another time, another place, and another perception of what is around us and what we take for granted. As time flies, this book invites us to fly with time and look at things not as we think they are but as we construct them to be, allowing every reader to interpret and tell the story as they see and would write. Every reader becomes a composer of images and a writer of signs.
In March, 2010, Time Flies received a mention in the “Opera Prima” category of the prestigious BolognaRagazzi Awards at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Italy.
What the Jury Said:
In Susana Reisman’s world, lines vibrate, triangles sing and numbers recall metaphysical clocks counting out the hours of eternity. Echoing Klee, Matisse and other 20th century artists, the artist aims to mesh music and painting. The result is so convincing that the pages seem to come alive. The tone, however, is always light-hearted, the medley of references and citations is always a source for enjoyment. The meticulous style provides an elegant framework for this delightful composition.
Pages 5/6 from Time Flies by Susana Reisman.
Pages 13/14 from Time Flies by Susana Reisman.
Pages 39/40 from Time Flies by Susana Reisman.
Pages 63/64 from Time Flies by Susana Reisman.
Reisman’s statement about her book:
Time Flies is a visual book that is thematically concerned with frameworks of perception and understanding—it is about seeing, reading and context. In it I want to bring awareness to these things; and draw attention to the structures that surround us, that we grow to accept as given or that are invisible.
I have chosen to use ‘time’ as the primary motif—time being an overarching structure that we live by. The clock-hands are animated in order to take us into a world of imagination, a realm where things shift and where play and experimentation abound. The numbers function as building blocks for a new world of patterns and structures where the slightest variation creates very different forms.
In doing so, I want to emphasize that such structures, systems, languages, frameworks, etc. are all constructed entities and that while necessary to communication, they are susceptible to change, to shifting views, offering new possibilities, new alternatives…
Essentially this book is metaphorically about the place of grey. It is about the place of ambiguity and complexity, neither black nor white but shades of grey.
