a talk and book signing with illustrator Matt Kish, author of MOBY-DICK IN PICTURES: ONE DRAWING FOR EVERY PAGE
Wednesday, Nov 30th at 6 p.m.
2008-2010 Delancey Place
Free with museum admission: $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, $5 for students. RSVP strongly recommended. Please call (215) 732-1600, ext. 123, email rsvp@rosenbach.org or visit www.rosenbach.org for additional information.
“In an age of soulless, cookie-cutter computer illustrations, Matt Kish's intense and obsessive drawings, paintings, and montages are a riotous delight. Kish's artwork renews our age-old love of expressive handmade imagery. He humanizes his material in a way that has all but disappeared from the design scene. It's great to see that passion again.” —Paula Scher
Inspired by one of the world’s greatest novels, Matt Kish set out on an epic journey of his own one day in August 2009. More than one hundred and fifty years following the original publication of Moby-Dick, Kish began illustrating Herman Melville’s classic, creating images based on the text selected from every page of the 552-page Signet Classics paperback edition.
The Rosenbach Museum & Library holds a number of Melville related objects in the museum’s collection and invites attendees to talk with Kish and explore his personal and artistic voyage through Moby-Dick.
Completely self-taught, Kish refused to set any boundaries for the artwork and employed a deliberately low-tech approach in response to the increasing popularity of born-digital art and literature. He used found pages torn from old, discarded books, as well as a variety of mediums, including ballpoint pen, marker, paint, crayon, ink, and watercolor. By layering images on top of existing words and images, Kish has crafted a visual masterpiece that echoes the layers of meaning in Melville’s narrative. In retrospect, Kish says he feels as foolhardy as Ishmael and as obsessed as Captain Ahab in his quest for the great white whale.
