Thank You This Especial Day by Paul Johnson —SOLD!

Artist Bio

Using brilliant industrial fabric dyes on mould made water colour paper, Paul Johnson has evolved a style that is uniquely his own. He uses the dyed sheets to construct a wide range of one-of-a-kind movable books often containing several hundred engineered pieces. Some are 360 degree carousels telling a theatre-like story ‘in the round’, others are 180 degree houses or spacecraft. As a child he grew up in the ancient city of Norwich – a medieval church on every street – so it is not surprising that his inspiration comes from ecclesiastical art especially illumination. But he is also motivated by Japanese art notably the colour woodblock prints of Hiroshige and Hokusai. Paul Johnson has an international reputation for his pioneering work in developing literacy through the book arts. He is author of over fifteen titles including A Book of One's Own, Literacy Through the Book Arts and Pictures and Words Together (all published by Heinemann,USA.)  Recent teaching tours include Sweden, South Korea and Thailand and he regularly teaches in the USA. Dr Johnson is also a successful book artist with work in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London, the Cooper-Hewett Museum in New York, the National Gallery, the Library of Congress, Washington DC, and many US universities including UCLA, Berkeley, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Yale and Harvard. His work was selected for the recent Stand and Deliver USA touring exhibition of pop-up editioned books, and for the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild’s The Art of the Book touring exhibition (2008-09) for which he also received the guild’s Book Art Colophon Award. He is on the UK Craft Council's select list of British designer-makers and won first prize (complete book) and the Portnall Award in the Society of Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition in 2013.