Reading a good book has always been a bit like entering an alternative world contained within their pages.
Until we saw the world of artist Guy Laramee, we were content for the idea to be merely metaphorical.
But his carved book sculptures quite literally create whole new landscapes without straying outside the boundaries of the page, as bibles are hollowed into barren rock faces and Chinese dictionaries whittled into Zen gardens.
Hollowed out Bible, by Guy Laramee
Perhaps the most affecting of Montreal-based Laramee’s carvings are from his Guan Yin series, a new collection currently showing in Canada that reflects on the Japanese tsunami of 2011.
“My mother died in 2011. I was with her when she took her last breath,” he explains on his website.
“It was a couple of days after Japan’s tsunami. Images that devastated me. I like to think that through these images and the anxiety that they triggered in me, I anticipated my mom’s death.”
Great Wave, by Guy Laramee
Laramee then created a delicate carving in which the frayed ends of one book’s pages curls over like a giant wave, rolling back into its self.
What do you think of Laramee’s book carvings? Let us know below.
Some of Guy Laramee's earlier work: