Miles Henderson-Smith

For this exhibition I will be using printed texts as a material with which to make a number of folded paper forms.  The process that I use involves working out flat paper patterns called nets, which are then cut out, folded and glued together to make hollow three-dimensional forms.  As an artist I have been using this process for about five years now. The work that I am making for this show will include a selection of the forms that I have previously made using this process and some new forms that have emerged from visits to Morrab Library.

I enjoy the idea of referencing the work into the library using the Dewey Decimal System. I see that the work I am making has three possible levels at which it can be read, given meaning and referenced.  The first is the literal meaning of the text, which appears on the surface of the work and refers to the book from which the work was taken.  The second is the form that I have created which itself is open to a different kind of reading.  The third is the combination of these two.

When making artworks I tend to layer complexity on any idea that I am engaged with.  The library by providing a system of referencing gives closure to such a multiplicity of ideas by giving them a fixed place while allowing them to thrive beside one another.