Recent artist's books

"Harlequinade" A collaboration between Mike Clements & Michelle Baharier with illustrated stories about our respective families. Michelle’s story pays tribute to her amazing great aunt who died in 2020, aged 111, and to her granddad’s adventures in a lion’s cage. Mike tells of his grandmother’s str...

"Harlequinade" - showing the two A3 "impositions" (a technical letterpress printing term for the page set-up needed to print in one pass through the press all the pages of one side of the paper – some pages appearing upside down. The book pages are then folded & cut). Our book is printed double-si...

Two Beach Huts
A “waterfall” book with seven pages: two pages of the same image as on the front cover, then one blank page, one more of the cover image, another blank and two more pages with the cover image. What to make of this? A clue comes on the back cover “Palindrome” © Mike Clements 22.2.22....

Waterfall book with Ukraine's flag repeated seven times (in case someone didn't get the message the first time).

A story told by icons only. Scroll structure.

"Lost Days 2022" appears to be a calendar for the coming year. But each month has some dates missing, or “lost”, defined by different mathematical series and simple code messages. January is missing prime numbers, February factors of 28, March the Fibonacci series, etc. Maybe you know someone who...

YouTube video at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1DDNwTP2vg

Petri Dish Covid 19 Road Signs
Revisiting the imaginary Covid road signs that I drew to remind myself of the rules and restrictions we endured over 18 months in 2020-21. Eight of the road signs are on an exraordinary "helix concertina" that fold nearly circular. It was made to fit into an eight c...

"Pie"
Fragment from a mathematician's study. Looks meaningless but maybe you can decipher it?
Selected by "La Briciola Squisita" (The exquisite crumb) for the online archive of autographic texts by writers, painters and others (@labriciolasquisita & https://labriciolasquisita.blogspot.com
£5 as po...

"Covid Road Signs"
Imaginary new road signs that might have been used by the government to enhance adherence to Covid 19 restrictions. Hope you can identify the icons (11 of these included in the book).
Castellated spine binding
£25

Lockdown Abstractions
To lift my mood during covid19 lockdown, November 2019

"A Few Wine Glasses & a Carafe or Two"
"Tokonoma" fastening pamphlet book, incorporating self-supporting stand.
A tokonoma is an alcove in a reception room in a Japanese house where prints are displayed. The print is changed to reflect the passing seasons or to evoke a particular mood. I've called t...

On Books
During lockdown some people have been tidying their houses, maybe starting with the bookshelves? Let's imagine...
"Shall I arrange my books in order?
"Will it be alphabetically?
"Or by subject?
"Or should I give way to randomness?"

Catherine Wheel structure invented by Mike Clements
£...

Shmole
Four double-sided postcards with collages inspired by Kurt Schwitters' "Merz" collages.

Shmole
The book open at first page.

Shmole

Jiggery-pokery
Another artist's book in my series on well-know words and phrases whose origin we don't immediately appreciate. Twist fold structure with an image from a notorious incident during the UK's Covid 19 lockdown in Spring 2020.
£10

"Tickety-boo"
Another artist's book in my series on well-know words and phrases whose origin we don't immediately appreciate.
Variant of Turkish mapfold structure.
Archival inks on ProDesign coated 120gsm paper. Cover from "mi-teintes" 160gsm.
£8

Thematic Flags
The two sides of a new artist's book with four "flags" from my series of iPad drawings. Uses my" Catherine Wheel" structure.
Archival inks on ProDesign coated 120gsm paper.
£8

Eight iPad drawings with the theme "flags", in a structure resembling the human figure (but that also folds flat, of course).
Archival inks on Fabriano 200gsm
£15

"The Lockdown Times April 2020"
Amazing "circular concertina" structure that becomes sculptural. The photos document one way we got through the first month and a bit of lockdown - through more adventurous cooking than there is time for in normal life (remember what that was?).
Heritage bookwhite120...

ColourSwatch
18 random colours from a household paint leaflet, highlight the elaborate names manufacturers invent.
I call the structure the "crocodile teeth". It's a variant on the flag book.
Covers & Spine from Southbank Smooth 250gsm
Flags from Mi-Teintes 160gsm
£45

24 drawings - variations on a formula, hence the title “Fomulaic”. Archival inks on Somerset Book 175gsm paper.
The structure allows for multiple ways to display the book: as a codex, as a star and in sculptural form with some or all of the page spreads opened out.
11 x 11cm as a codex. Up to 35 ...

The Colours of Flooding
Double-sided, 4-fold concertina in the style of a domestic paint swatch. The 34 colours range from Dam Burst and Flood Water Grey to Mudflow and Sandbag and on to Swamp Green and Storm Surge.
Archival inks on 160gsm coated paper
£10

The Whole Shebang
The latest in my series on well-know words and phrases whose origin we don't immediately appreciate.
Pop-up card. Southbank smooth 250gsm
£7.50

"From Pheidias” is an instalment in an ongoing conversation by postcard and across two and a half millennia between the artist and Pheidias, the sculptor of the greatest works of ancient Greece, notably the gold statues of Athena in the Parthenon in Athens and Zeus at Olympia, one of the seven wonde...

“Fishbone” artist’s book
I was due to run a “fishbone structure” workshop at Marches Makers 2020 in early May - now cancelled, of course. I had begun preparations, including making a new book to illustrate the structure.
I was also busy trying to give the work I was doing wider relevance by making ...

"How Bleak Might be our Future?"
Eight unnamed creatures strike poses varying from defiant to submissive, hope to despair and health to deformity. What will be their future in the face of man-made intrusions, erosion and destruction of their habitat?
Uses "Catherine Wheel" structure invented by Mik...

8 Octopuses
Images of octupuses drying in the Greek sun and being tenderised against a rock by a Greek fisherman.
(By the way, “octopuses” is linguistically correct, not “octopi”.)
£25

8 Octopuses
There is a pleasing symmetry to 8 images of octopuses; and to the use of the “fishbone” structure.
PS “octopuses” is linguistically correct, not “octopi”.)

"Skew-whiff"
The first in a new series of artist’s books looking at the meaning and derivation of well-know but relatively obscure words and phrases.
Turkish mapfold.
£7.50

Skew-whiff open, to show Turkish mapfold structure.
£7.50

Investigative journalist Boguslaw Bolek dumps cold water all over our fantasies that the Loch Ness monster exists.
Trump Gazette calls it fake news.
Dust jacket only
45 x 21cm
£10

How Bleak Might be our Future?
A pop-up book with a collection of unidentified creatures resembling penguins. In some of the images the creatures appear to be upright and healthy. In others they seem deformed, sick and even sad. Some of the creatures stare defiantly, perhaps blaming us for their...

“Old Norse to Old English dictionary” compiled by Boguslav Bolek
A New artist’s book by Mike Clements
The gripping story of Boguslav Bolek’s escape from Latvia during the communist era and his path to fluency in Old Norse and later Old English; of his vow, aged 21, never to speak any other languages...

“Old Norse to Old English dictionary” compiled by Boguslav Bolek
The publisher had agreed to publish this specialist dictionary hoping to sell a few hundred copies to academic libraries. But only a handful of copes were ever printed and none is known to have survived intact. We are thus left with ...

Portfolio of nine prints, plus the front cover print, that recalls the “livres d’artiste” popular in the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in Paris. Dealers and publishers commissioned well-known artists, from Picasso and Braque to Matisse and Miró, to produce suites of prints – lit...

Columns & Caves
Livres d’artiste have fallen out of fashion. Today, prints are more usually bought to be framed and hung on buyers’ walls. Perhaps the livre d’artiste merits a revival.
Ten original digital prints. Archival inks. Simili Japon 225gsm paper.
£85

Greetings scrolls wound round a bottle cork.
£5

Deep Water
First of a new series about health & safety notices Despite the title, only 13 of the notices warn of deep water: the 14th alerts those inclined to jump off a bridge in the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London about shallow water below.
Somerset Book paper 175gsm
£30

Deep Water
The book’s structure is a development of the lotus fold, discovered by approaching the design from a different direction. The main structure is from one sheet of paper.
Somerset Book paper 175gsm
£30

Many a Slip
A second volume in my new series of though-provoking health & safety notices. Do public authorites (throughout Europe) believe that putting up signs absolves them from a duty to deal with slip hazards?
Hidden staple binding invented by the author.
£30

Many a Slip
Health & Safety notices about tripping.
Hidden staple binding invented by the author.
£30

Lost Days 2020
What appears, at first sight, a simple 2020 calendar turns out to have missing, or “lost”, dates – according to various mathematical formulae (prime numbers, Fibonacci series, etc) & simple code messages. There is a list of these on the accompanying envelope, should you tire of worki...

Northern Ireland’s second largest city has long had a split identity: Derry to Irish nationalists & Londonderry to unionists. Some public bodies now refer to Derry/Londonderry – spoken as “Derry stroke Londonderry” – which then gave rise to the jocular “Stroke City”.
Derry/Londonderry is a fine exa...

A Presidential Lexicon
Seven strange words or phrases that characterised the first year of the current President’s term. One side of each "flag" contains a word or phrase, while the other side attempts to explain what it means.
The structure is another new discovery. The flags are stored and trans...

Presidential Thoughts
Eight illustrated words or phrases associated with the current US President, in the style of Heath Robinson.
Double (dos-à-dos) mapfold structure.
£22

A cartoon illustration in the style of Heath Robinson parodying the pronouncements of a former US President.
£3

"Monster Medallions" - a miniature portrait of Frankenstein's monster plus eight transparent slides. Place each slide in turn over the the portrait to view episodes from the monster's creation, life and demise.
Made for Frankenstein 2018 exhibition at Kirkby Gallery, Knowsley on Merseyside.
Envelop...

"Monster Medallions" - envelope containing a miniature portrait of Frankenstein's monster plus eight transparencies.
Envelope 8.8cm x 8.8cm
£35

A Contemporary Grand Tour – book XVII, Central Portugal
Facsimile copies of eight envelopes posted from eight different post boxes in Porto, the Douro Valley and Central Portugal. The envelopes have the artist’s address plus postage stamps.
Volume 17 in the “Contemporary Grand Tour” series uses t...

Inside the eight envelopes are unused postcards with my photographs of Portuguese public sculpture, old & new, featuring books. Such “book” sculptures are common in Portugal, in contrast to the UK. Is Portugal more literary or “booky” than the UK?
£35

Frankenstein's Monster (Apps)
Six imaginary “apps” that explore the Frankenstein story and its themes of ambition and hubris, ethics and morality, responsibility for one’s actions, free will and empathy. It does so through contemporary issues that are directly relevant, notably artificial intellige...

Frankenstein's Monster (Apps) flat-packed
To celebrate Frankenstein’s Monster in 2018, it is unnecessary to build a humanoid creature, or even a robot. We live in an information age and - simply by installing Apps running AI and machine learning software on your various devices - you can emulate an...

Lost Cards (43 Trees)
A bundle of 85 old cigarette cards (but distributed with packs of tea) that were seven short of the full set of 50 “British Trees”.
In my youth our collections were difficult to complete. Every new pack of tea replicated a card we already had. My fellow collectors at pr...

Lost Cards, showing the double-sided concertina structure with pockets for the 43 cards (and including spaces for the 7 missing or "lost" cards)