Watercourse I (2022)
Watercourse I (2022)
Barbara Hocker
Scroll in variant dragon scale binding. L152 cm (variable) x W12 cm. 64 panels. Unique. Acquired from the artist, 10 February 2024.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.
Works evocative of water often invoke a sense of meditative stillness, but Barbara Hocker’s Watercourse I prompts a sense of meditative activity. You can’t stop moving it about. Or if you’re not moving it, you find yourself moving around it to contemplate it. It is the layering of watercolor, sumi ink, photographic prints with archival inks on washi paper, and the ancient Chinese method of bookbinding called dragon scale (sometimes called “whirlwind” or “fish scale” binding) that achieves this. Traditionally, the binding method involves a long scroll of paper to which successively shorter folios are attached at one end, often secured with a bamboo rod. Hocker has modified this structure by attaching folios of the same size with hinges to the underlying long scroll at intervals allowing one folio to overlap the next and so on. In each case, the effect of the overlapping folios creates the appearance of dragon scales.
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