Jeremy Dixon
Jeremy Dixon lives just outside Cardiff making Artist’s Books that combine poetry, photography and letterpress. He writes, designs, and makes all his books by hand, relishing the slight differences and imperfections that can result. Since founding Hazard Press in 2010 he has participated in many book fairs including the Glasgow International Artists Bookfair, Turn the Page in Norwich and the Small Publishers’ Fair in London. He has had work exhibited both in the UK and abroad in America, Russia and Iceland. |
Hazard Press books are in many private and public collections including the Tate Gallery, the Saison Poetry Library, the University of Pennsylvania, and Winchester School of Art. He has run book-making and text-based workshops for organisations such as Chapter and Artes Mundi. His poetry has appeared both online and in print.
Website: www.hazardpress.co.uk
Twitter: @HazardPressUK
Website: www.hazardpress.co.uk
Twitter: @HazardPressUK
A sense of humour, a sense of Cardiff, like
Geoautomusicalbiography in the books of Hazard Press
The concept of place has been a prevalent theme in the development of artists’ books since the beginnings of the art form, and has often been linked to ideas of hidden knowledge, humour and the appropriation of found objects and ephemera. The work of Jeremy Dixon and Hazard Press combines all these elements but in a very personal way that is specific to his life growing up and living in Cardiff and the surrounding area. This illustrated presentation will look at the links between Cardiff (and Wales Cymru) in his books and how they have rather unexpectedly formed an on-going project of autobiography based on poetry, memory, queerness, music, images, and a delight in the accidental forms and diversions that the journey of planning and making an artists’ book can take.
The presentation will show the why, the what and the how of the processes Hazard Press goes through in choosing to make a book. The subjects of Hazard Press books are very diverse, encompassing pilgrimages to the graves of the poets Emily Dickinson and Dylan Thomas, the songs of Shirley Bassey and Bobbie Gentry, the gay subculture of Chicago, and the weaving of vintage stamps into strips of paper. The presentation will also look at the rather subtle and tongue in cheek elements of humour that can also be incorporated into artists’ books. Jeremy Dixon has been a practitioner in the field of Book Arts since founding Hazard Press in 2010 following a career in community and museum graphic design.