Totem Exhibition at the Byron Bay Library 2023
These seven works called Totem are in the proportions of Japanese Kakejiku scrolls. Kakejiku’s are painted on both paper or silk, and often changed with the seasons or to mark auspicious occasions or events and traditionally hung in tokonowa (wall niche).
The seven works were created first using a stone lithographic printing process, preparing and drawing on 150 million years old limestone quarried in Solnhofen, Bavaria. Drawing on these finely grained stones is the most sublime drawing experience that I have ever found. It feels like drawing on wet/dry sandpaper that connects with the end of the pencil so you can actually feel the line as it is made. For a drawer, this is the ultimate drawing material.
These seven works are sequential, creating, in symbolic form, something of the seasonal narrative life’s path might take. They capture experiences, though often intangible or dreamlike, sensed in the different phases of life. They each represent separate stories, which, together, form a narrative of the whole.
These Kakejiku seem suitable for the library as each scroll presents a “story” for the viewer to step into or to create an imaginative story of their own. The use of symbolic imagery allows the viewer to bring their own meaning to each piece.
The Japanese aesthetic of simplicity, stillness, movement, transition, harmony and subtlety create throughlines in all seven works.
Totem Series by Sam Sosnowski are available as limited edition (only 10) prints.
They can be printed on 310 GSM Hahnmuhle acid free paper or on silk fabric.. The inks are archival and colorfast. The prices include rods and pockets for hanging.
