selected works by Julie Johnstone
A selection of works by Julie Johnstone published under her Essence Press imprint from 2005-2022.
nine cyan squares
nine cyan squares and a magenta circle | h 180mm x w 140mm x depth 7mm | 11 loose leaf sheets (including title sheet) in a folder | nine sheets printed with a cyan square in ascending tints of 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%, 45%, 50%, 55%, 60%, 65%; a single sheet printed with a magenta circle, 65% | printed inkjet on Bockingford watercolour 320gsm | wrapped in tracing paper folder | open edition | 2022 | £20 | purchase
This work was created for the Librarians’ Artists’ Books (LAB) Exhibition Ed Ruscha Challenge.
It is inspired by NINE SWIMMING POOLS and a broken glass, by Ed Ruscha (1968).
MA[RGINS]
Margin: a space between spine and text. Ma: the Japanese concept of negative space. The context is torn away leaving the margins to stand on their own terms, perhaps stripping them of meaning. What is left? A blank book; a sculptural exploration of redundancy or emptiness; suggestive of loss, censorship, yet a meditation on the value inherent in the overlooked spaces of the page.
MA[RGINS] | h 28cm x w 6cmp | cover printed inkjet on Bockingford watercolour 300gsm | handbound and handtorn | created for the AMBruno MARGINS project, 2022 | open edition | £25 | purchase
Regine is a Berlin-based curator and art historian with a research focus on exhibition history, artists’ publications, conceptualism and contemporary photography. She works as a research fellow in the theory department of the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig.
a little distraction | a little focus
A tiny double-sided contemplative concertina made for the new year. A circular experience for and about the ever-shifting mind.
a little distraction, a little focus | Julie Johnstone | double-sided concertina | folded 50mm x 50mm; unfolded 50mm x 150mm | printed in 50% black & 50% cyan | Bockingford watercolour paper 300gsm | open edition | 2022 | £3 | purchase
light on the water | water in the light
light on the water / water in the light | Julie Johnstone | 2021 | inkjet print on Bockingford watercolour paper, 300gsm | typeset in Garamond italic in black ink at tints of 25% and 35% | h360mm x w260mm | open edition | each print supplied with signed card by the artist | 2021 | £35 | purchase | read more
barely audible | a book of quiet
This book was selected for the AMBruno 2021 Volume project.
0dB represents the threshold of human hearing. Sounds registering 10dB are classified as ‘barely audible’, a soundscape perceived as quiet. This book explores the ‘volume’ or ‘substance’ that is ‘quiet’.
A blank page or book is a container holding emptiness, lacking visual and aural noise. In the tradition of ‘blank’ books, the blankness occupies the page, giving the book its meaning both experientially and conceptually.
The book has eight facing and eight verso pages. Each facing page is blank. Every other verso contains a faintly visible phrase representing a sound given in decibel charts as ‘barely audible’: ‘a breath’, ‘a pin dropping’, ‘a leaf falling’, and finally, imagined for this book: ‘a page gently turned’. The reader turns each page, becoming quieter in the process, meeting each phrase then an intervening blankness, witnessing their own quietened actions in the final phrase. The book contains quiet, is quiet, and induces quiet.
barely audible a book of quiet | h 120mm x w 370mm, 20pp | printed inkjet on Bockingford watercolour 190gsm | handbound | open edition | 2021 | £25 | purchase
[For best visibility, view this video at full screen mode.]
sky blossom sunshine showers
sky blossom sunshine showers | concertina | h 90mm x w 380mm; w 95mm when closed | printed inkjet on 300gsm Bockingford watercolour paper | sky 60% cyan, blossom 60% magenta, sunshine 60% yellow, showers 30% black | 2021 | £4 | purchase
tears rain grief birdsong
tears rain grief birdsong | concertina | h 90mm x w 380mm; w 95mm when closed | printed inkjet on 300gsm Bockingford watercolour paper | tears 30% black, rain 40% cyan, grief 30% black, birdsong 40% cyan | 2021 | £4 | purchase
lift me
small box | h 57mm x w 57mm x d 23mm | texts printed inkjet on Bockingford watercolour paper 300g | 2021 | £4 | purchase
leaf steam tea sigh
leaf steam tea sigh | concertina | h 90mm x w 380mm; w 95mm when closed | printed inkjet on 300gsm Bockingford watercolour paper | 2021 | £4 | purchase
marks on a surface | kyoto
Marks on a surface is an ongoing body of work that centres on photographs of temple walls and gravel gardens that I took while visiting Kyoto over the past five years. There are five book works; these can be purchased together or separately. read more
the book of the sky
In March 2020 a monograph and catalogue was published about this curatorial project with William Zachs at Blackie House. More information on the Book of the Sky page.
monograph & exhibition catalogue | by Julie Johnstone & William Zachs | co-published by Essence Press & Blackie House | photography by Tom Nolan | h 160mm x w 240mm x d 20mm; 172pp | full colour litho printing | thread-sewn | cover Colourplan Azure Blue, debossed title with clear foil; inner pages 200gsm | March 2020 | £20
UK £20 purchase
lacunal blues
Lacunal Blues is a commission by Neil Crawford. It is in a limited edition of 7. read more
Triptych, three books | each book h280mm x w190mm | printed inkjet on six facing pages (including the cover page) on 80gsm Hahnemühle Sumi-e | bound with linen thread | supplied in a three section folder (h330mm x w255mm) made from a sheet of 190gsm Bockingford watercolour paper | supplied with a handbound artists’ statement | commissioned by Neil Crawford | an edition of 7 | 2020 | £175 | purchase
posted / unposted
POSTED/UNPOSTED•British Isles is co-organised by Imi Maufe (Codex Polaris) and Angie Butler (ABPress, Bristol, UK) and presents 28 artists, poets, printers and publishers from the British Isles who use (or have the potential to use) letterpress printing techniques. read more
It was launched at IMPACT 11 International Print Festival in Hong Kong as an online exhibition.
The project is a box set containing all of the contributors, but have ten copies of my own contribution for sale separately, at £25. Please contact me at essencepress@btinternet.com if you are interested
10%-90%
five breaths
ten breaths
quietly breathing
b-br-bre
LIFE
the space around
a fold of air
a given breath
a sigh
each breath a page
cyanometer
ten blue pages | ten grey pages
the sound of the rain
a breath
quiet poems
brevities
enlighten | endarken
endarken | 2017 | long slim card, landscape | £3 | purchase | read more
cyan 10% 15% | 15% 10%
20% 40% black | 20% cyan
forecast variable
visible | invisible
look to the visible | 2017 | £3 | purchase | read more
a given sky
whatever
looking for grey | longing for blue
stratus
one blue word | one grey word
four landscapes
a precipitation of punctuation
36 views of mount fuji
zen & the art of artists’ books
cmyk 30% 60% 90%
cracks
an empty space
1% 2% 3% 5% 7%
shift
on completeness
two frames
line
you are here
again
inside
emptiness : a keepsake
exercise
present
3% [1-5]
red
field
3%-18%
2-20% | 20-2cm
10% 20% 30% cyan
field [3]
material | immaterial [2]
10% | 15%
ten folds [5%-50%]
1-16%
phases
a book of hours
meditation [1% 2%]
open slowly
impalpability
primes | circular primes
why
light
becoming still
1-10% 2-20% 3-30%
forms of grey
slow
seeing
point of view
thing
material | immaterial
meditation
a tool for reflection
yellow
landscape
here
is that an island
pausing here
a book of tears
falling softly
