Childhood Memories Painted Across Books by Ekaterina Panikanova

My Modern Met:

Rome-based Russian artist Ekaterina Panikanova uses open-faced books, carefully aligned with one another, as a large canvas for each of her paintings in a series titled Errata Corrige. Using old books and various antiquated texts, Panikanova proceeds to apply her dark markings across the multiple volumes of published words and images.

Like a hidden message or puzzle, her works are applied across unspecified pages on each book. Furthermore, with some of her paintings (which are more like installations), there is a puzzling three-dimensionality to them as the pages are not bound down. Instead, they flow freely and add not only layers, but also a sense of texture to the piece.

This series offers both a visually interesting presentation and a deeper interpretation. A press release for Panikanova's work reads: "[T]he proposition of the artist is based on the metaphor of the oyster and the pearl: the entrance of the sand represents a stress element for the shell and starts the expulsion and the production of the pearl. This metaphor indicates that since childhood, everyone holds a storage of images, traumas and experiences that they carry for all their lives."