Bibliomania – The Bookshelf Portrait Project: Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts

Victoria Reichelt

5 - 29 Jun 2008

Bibliomania: The Bookshelf Portrait Project was a series of works that were ‘portraits’ of contemporary australian artists through paintings of their bookshelves. With the invention of printing techniques that enabled the mass reproduction of books in the 19th century, came a desire for people to collect and display books. Decisions people make about the books they chose to buy, keep and display reveal a considerable amount about them. For Bibliomania, I made portraits of seven Australian artists based on photographs of their bookshelves. Conventional portraiture relies on a visual representation of the subject, through which most of the information you get is about their visual appearance. However, photographing and painting someone’s bookshelf reveals another side to them and offers a deeper insight into their interests and, in this case, the thoughts and ideas that frame these artists practices.