Running Backwards #2

It is the book as an object and the manipulation of text that has constantly informed Nedēla’s work over the past twenty years and continues to do so. Social, literary, philosophical and political documents, tomes and book pages, some old and some aesthetically exquisite in themselves, have succumbed to a range of manipulations and interventions by Nedēla, in a calculated attempt to conspire a kind of linguisitic and artistic subterfuge. Through the reassignment of the book as an art object and text as a pictorial element, Nedela acknowledges the words and works of artists such as John Cage, Joseph Beuys and Tom Phillips who “managed to make great art without ever taking it too seriously”.

In Running Backwards #2, words have been reconstituted and in some cases permanently concealed. Facing pages have been extracted from their bindings to accommodate three dimensional implements such as nails, moulded linoleum, and collaged paper. These are pages that will never again be closed between the covers of a book.