Photo: Dave Kinsey
California-based artist Mike Stilkey paints images on the bindings of books. From an interview with the webzine Fecal Face:
Why did you choose to paint on books? It seems like it would have been a challenge to go from working on paper to painting on something so dimensional. What was that transition like?
It was sort of an accident. I was painting on book pages for forever, and actually published a book in 2005 titled "100 Portraits" in which I drew one hundred portraits on old book pages. At the time, I was drawing on books, records or anything else I could find at a thrift store. Eventually, I started drawing on the books themselves. I was going to do a project where I just drew on the covers of the books, and as I finished them I would stack them against the wall. It dawned on me that it might be a good idea to paint down the spines of the books instead of just on the covers. The first one I did I didn't really think much of, but I brought it down to BLK/MRKT, and I remember Jana going crazy over it. We showed it at the second Artists' Annual group show where it got quite a bit of attention, including attention from Kim Davenport, the director of Rice Gallery in Houston
You can read the full interview and see large images of his work at the link.
http://www.fecalface.com/SF/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1428 via io9 | Artist's Website
Rice Art Gallery, one of the best in the country IMHO.
Proof here.
sometimes they have neat stuff, a lot of it is somewhat medicore. this guy for example, the book thing is neat, but his images aren't spectacular.