Clifton Meador, “A Repeated Misunderstanding of Nature”

Artist Statement

A Repeated Misunderstanding of Nature is a set of five leporello books, each presenting a sequence of woodland images from Vinalhaven Island in Maine. The border of each image includes a text from a long, imaginary lecture by a professor who—even though he sounds convinced—is actually confused about how to understand nature: he drifts between thinking of nature as something to read and nature as an anthropomorphic presence. This work was inspired by Chinese literati landscape painting, a mode of art that used images of nature as a vocabulary rather than as representation of specific landscapes. For these literati, landscape was a metaphor for personal experience: for the confused professor in A Repeated Misunderstanding of Nature, these pictures of the autumnal forests of Maine become a text that defeats reading.

Clifton Meador

Chicago, Illinois
http://www.cliftonmeador.com

A Repeated Misunderstanding of Nature
2012

Archival inkjet, offset litho, letterpress, laser-cut birch plywood

Edition size of 20
5 leporellos
5.5 x 16 x 3.25″ in slipcase
16 x 88″ when fully opened

View of the laser-cut birch plywood slipcase that encloses all five leporellos of A Repeated Misunderstanding of Nature.

View of title page of Volume One of A Repeated Misunderstanding of Nature.

Reading view of pages 3-4 of Volume One of A Repeated Misunderstanding of Nature.

View of the covers of the five leporellos of A Repeated Misunderstanding of Nature.

View of pages 3-4 of Volume Two of A Repeated Misunderstanding of Nature.

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