BIOGRAPHY
There is an essential paradox that distinguishes Tracey Rowledge’s work. Her practice straddles fine art and the applied art of bookbinding. She makes objects that are free from the constraints of usage, and objects whose treatment is entirely defined by function. Drawing and materiality play important roles in each.
It is the coexistence of two ways of thinking that informs the infinitely subtle judgements Rowledge is known for in her commissioned bindings, and which makes her fine art objects at times tantalizingly difficult to categorize. Whether on a book cover or a support, Rowledge’s approach elevates the tiniest of fragments - a scribble, a crumpled shopping list - into an object of beauty, a focus for thought.
Emma Hill | Eagle Gallery, 2016
Education
'88–'95
Guildford College of Further & Higher Education. 1993-95
Fine Bookbinding & Conservation Diploma (Distinction)
University of London Goldsmiths' College. 1989-92
BA (Hons) Fine Art (Upper Second)
Epsom School of Art & Design. 1988-1989
Pre BA Foundation (Distinction)
SELECTED EMPLOYMENT
'95 – '17
San Francisco Center for the Book, USA. 2017
Visiting Lecturer
Boekbinderij Papyrus, Leiden, Netherlands. 2015
Visiting Lecturer
Centro del bel libro, Ascona, Switzerland. 2015
Visiting Lecturer
Leksands Folkhögskola, Sweden. 2014
Visiting Lecturer
Sainsbury Centre, Norwich. 2014
Visiting Lecturer
St Brides Foundation, London. 2015
Visiting Lecturer
Being Open to Chance. Konstfack, Sweden. 2011
Visiting Lecturer
National Archives, Dublin. 2011
Visiting Lecturer
V&A Conservation studio. 2011
Visiting Lecturer
60|40 mentoring programme at S.D.S. London, 2009 – 13
SELECTED
collaborations
Ongoing collaborative works with David Clarke (Silversmith)
Working collaboratively began in 2009, while also retaining their independent practices as artists. Discussions over the years have created a unique kind of trust that has fostered their ability to conceive work that could not have existed except through their collaboration. As a result, working together has become a vital part of each of their practices, invaluably enabling an outside perspective on their own practices. They maintain rigorous and active enquiry into each other’s practice and way of thinking, which allows them to explore hierarchies within craft: material, form, scale and subject matter.
What Isn’t Here Hasn’t Happened (with Sarah Warsop)
A two year collaboration, commissioned by Siobhan Davies Dance, which resulted in 2011, with a series of large graphite drawings which explore mark-making through choreographed movement and movement through mark-making. The drawings capture the particular qualities and character of the movement without the body being present and in this way, the mark-making and the body’s physical and emotional state are inseparable.
60|40 (with David Clarke & Clare Twomey) 2008 – 2013
60|40 was an independent artists group, whose manifesto set out to respond/create/move/make/engage/influence/. Project by project, 60|40 aimed to expand the environment for experimental applied arts.
Tomorrow’s Past Founded in 2003
An International group of bookbinders, who make modern conservation bindings for antiquarian books. Their collective aim is to: preserve books as artefacts, contribute to the personal learning and development of bookbinders, increase public awareness and appreciation of physical books and to stimulate debate.
Collaborative works Ti Parks Ti Parks and Tracey Rowledge had a very specific and common interest in found scraps of discarded paper usually with marks on them either in the form of fragments of writing or accidental scuffs. When Parks and Rowledge met in 1996, their common interest resulted in a number of collaborations. In 1997 they produced two unique books, with gold tooled alum-tawed goatskin bindings, called Harry Helen – found road prints from Blackheath and I Saw Jamie Maclean – road prints. Then in September of 1998 they made a series of ten road print books with reclaimed linen bindings from the backs of antique maps.
Collaborative works Jonathan Parsons Jonathan Parsons and Tracey Rowledge met at Goldsmiths’ College London, where they forged a lasting friendship and established visual common ground in the form of the exploration of mark making via laborious craft practices, including drawing, painting and gold tooling on leather. This approach enabled them to ‘re-make’ marks and accurately transcribe them. Their ongoing enquiry into the re-creation of gesture via non-gestural processes and techniques resulted in two collaborations: He Gestured Toward Her, 1996 and Towel 1998.
In early 2020, Rowledge and Parsons began discussions for their next collaboration: a series entitled Double. Working from the same source material and to the same dimensions, each artist will respond independently to the same ‘found’ material. The source material will provoke a different response in each artist, in their selection of materials and the technique each develops for the re-making of the image. This collaboration has been set out to challenge their own individual conventions of making, particularly with the anticipation of their works being shown side by side on completion. This series will enable them to explore how two independent artists can create the ‘same’ image through different non-gestural processes, in order to interrupt and alter the viewers perception of how an image can be read and how meaning is conveyed through visual interpretation.
RESIDENCies
Field Notes, with David Clarke, at Leksands folkhögskola, Sweden, September 2021.
Shelved, Artscore Artists in Residence with David Clarke, at Tunbridge Wells Museum & Art Gallery.
July 2016 – June 2017
SELECTED FAIRS
& EXHIBITIONS
10 Years of LCBA, Books: Art, Craft & Community, 2022, London Centre for Book Arts, London, UK
Field Notes (work made collaboratively with David Clarke), 2022 Leksands folkhögskola, Sweden
A Gathering of Leaves, 2022, Designer Bookbinders International Competition Bodleian Library, UK (touring)
CODEX Book Fair, 2022 Book Fair and Symposium, San Francisco, USA
COLLECT, 2021
Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections, London, UK
AUTOTRITRATTO, 2020 Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections, London, UK
Waterscape, 2020 Circus Space, Inverness, Scotland, UK
COLLECT, 2020
Madeinbritaly, at Collect, Somerset House, London, UK
OPEN • SET - Design Binding Today, 2020 The Grolier Club, New York City, USA (touring)
Drop Dead Gorgeous: Fine Bindings of La Prose du Transsibérien Re-creation, 2019 San Francisco Center for the Book, USA (touring)
Figures and figurines, 2019 Rian design museum, Sweden (touring)
Collect Open 2019, Collect, London, UK (exhibiting ROOM: a work made collaboratively with David Clarke)
CODEX Book Fair, 2019 Book Fair and Symposium, San Francisco, USA
SHELVED (Work made collaboratively with David Clarke), 2018 Gallery S O, London, UK
COLLECT, 2018
Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
SHELVED (Work made collaboratively with David Clarke), 2018
Tunbridge Wells Museum, reference library, adult education centre and The Dog’s Trust charity shop, UK
Les Pages Bien, 2017
Cloitre de la Psalette in the Saint Gatien Cathedral in Tours, France
MAKE, 2017
Ruthin Craft Centre, Ruthin, Denbighshire, UK
CODEX 2017
Book Fair and Symposium, San Francisco, USA
The Poet of Them All, 2016
Yale Center for British Art, Connecticut, USA
Word Works. 2016
201 Bishopsgate, London, The Eagle Gallery, UK
London Craft Week, 2016
Contemporary Applied Arts, UK
The Artist's book fair, 2014
New York, USA, The Eagle Gallery
Schrift und Objekt, 2014
Gallery Handwerk, Munich, Germany
COLLECT, 2014
Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
Signs & Syntax. 2014
Eagle Gallery Project, London Art Fair, UK
Beautiful Readable Objects, 2013
The Aram Gallery, London, UK
Scratch Scribble Scrawl, 2013
Aspex, Portsmouth, UK
In Parallel, 2012
Ian Rastrick Fine Art, St Albans, UK.
Formed Thoughts, 2012
Jerwood Encounters, Jerwood Space, London, UK
Siobhan Davies Commissions, 2011
London, UK
U-N-F-O-L-D, 2010
Vienna, Austria, touring
Hue Line & Form, 2007
Contemporary Applied Arts, London, UK
Languages, 2005
Galerie 422, Gmunden/Austria (touring)
The Art of the Book, 2005
Selfridges, London, UK
Innovate to Conserve, 2004
Municiple Archive of Lyon, Lyon, France
Tomorrow's Past, 2003
The Antiquarian Book Fair, Olympia, London, UK.
Salon International du Livre Ancien, Grand Palais, Paris, France.
What is Craft? 2003
Hub, Sleaford, Lincolnshire, UK
Approaching Content, 2003
Crafts Council, London, UK (touring)
Ripe, 2000
Crafts Council, London, UK
Beyond Bounds, 1999
Royal Museum, Scotland, UK (with
SELECTED
COLLECTIONS
Dallas Museum, USA
Cape Farewell, UK
The British Library, UK
The National Library of Scotland, UK
Victoria and Albert Museum, UK
London College of Communication Library (LCC)
part of University of the Arts London, UK
Eton College Library, UK
Fidelity, UK
Various private collections
SELECTED
PUBLICATIONS
2022
Field Notes publication with essay by Beatrice Brovia
2022
A Gathering of Leaves, p. 36, Designer Bookbinders International Competition exhibition catalogue
(ISBN 978-1-85124-592-5)
2019
ROOM publication with essay by Linda Sandino
(Download)
2016
The Fine Art of Craft, p.16, The Art Newspaper, Section 2, no. 279, May 2016.
The Poet of Them All by Elisabeth R Fairburn, p.222 (ISBN 978-0-300-21912-8).
2015
From One Maker To Another, The New Bookbinder, Vol 35, p65-72, (ISSN 0261-5363).
(Download)
Bookbinder of the Month (March), Flash of the Hand Blog.
www.herringbonebindery.com
2014
Translating the past into the present, a review by Simon Goode, Crafts Magazine, Jan/Feb, p.62 (ISSN No: 0306-610X).
2013
Deception in Fixing FIXPERTS, December 2013. By Héloïse Parke.
http://fixperts-org.tumblr.com/post/70577801658/deception-in-fixing-héloïse-parke
Drawing in Arctic Water by Nancy Campbell, Huffington Post (online)
View the article here
2012
In Parallel essay by Tanya Harrod (Download)
Formed Thoughts Jerwood Encounters, (catalogue) 978-1-908331-03-8.
2011
60|40 David Clarke, Tracey Rowledge, Clare Twomey (catalogue) ISBN 978-91-978426-7-9.
ICON NEWS, May 2011, issue 34, p29-30.
Bookbinder, Vol. 24, p48 & p50 (ISBN0954412087).
Book Arts arts du livre Canada, 2011 Vol. 2, no. 2, p9-20 (ISSN 1923-1776).
2010
U-n-f-o-l-d, A Cultural Response to Climate Change, p.86-89 (catalogue) ISBN: 978-3-7091-0220-6.
2009
Arctic Scrolls by Veronica Simpson, Crafts Magazine, Sept/Oct, p.34-37 (ISSN 0306-610X).
(Read article)
2009
60|40's Gentle revolution continues by Glenn Adamson, Crafts Magazine, Sept/Oct, p.64 (ISSN 0306-610X).
2008
A World Beyond Art and Craft by Veronica Simpson, Crafts Magazine, Nov/Dec, p.21 (ISSN 0306-610X).
2007
Designer Bookbinders Newsletter, No. 139, p2-3.
2006
The Neale M. Albert Collection of Miniature Designer Bindings, p81 (catalogue) ISBN 0/910672/67/9.
2004
Designer Bookbinders Newsletter, No. 128, p6-8.
Designer Bookbinders Newsletter, No. 127, p7-9.
2003
Bookbinder, Vol.17, p45 (ISBN 0 9544120 1 X).
2000
The New Bookbinder, Vol. 20, Front cover and p49 ISSN 0261-5363.
1999
The Crafts in Britain in the Twentieth Century by Tanya Harrod, p432 (colour p433) ISBN 0-300-07780-7.
1998
Bound to Please by Margot Coatts, Crafts Magazine, March/April, p34-37 (ISSN 0306-610X).
Designer Bookbinders Newsletter, No. 105.
1996
I Walk the Line, The New Bookbinder Vol. 16, p30-40 ISSN 0261-5363.
SELECTED AWARDS
Project Grant from Arts Council England, for ROOM with David Clarke at Collect Open. 2019.
Cape Farewell Expedition to Disko Bay, Greenland: supported by the Crafts Council. 2008
The Carroll Foundation Craft Award: Chelsea Craft Fair. 1998
London Arts Board: Craft Award. 1997
The Bookbinding Competition: The Elizabeth Greenhill Award for Gold Tooling. 1997
Society of Bookbinders Competition: Finishing Prize. 1997
Awarded The Crafts Council setting up grant. 1996
The Bookbinding Competition: The Elizabeth Greenhill Award for Gold Tooling & Second Prize for an Open Choice Book. 1996
The Bookbinding Competition: Silver Medal for Best Book in Competition & Second Prize for an Open Choice Book. 1995
Society of Bookbinders Competition: First Prize for Best Designed Binding. 1995
Guildford College of Further & Higher Education: The William Matthews Award & The Harmatan Prize. 1995