wood+paper+box, Mise-en-Scène, 2023 Beach Museum of Art Gift Print, 2023.13, photo: Alec Smith
wood+paper+box in your hands
Open through May 3, 2024 | Free admission and parking
Katie Baldwin, Mariko Jesse, and Yoonmi Nam are the artists behind the collective called wood+paper+box. They are also the creators of the 2023-2024 Friends of the Beach Museum of Art Gift Print and the focus of the exhibition wood+paper+box in your hands.
Works by this artist-collective engage their audience not only visually but also through touch and interaction. The exhibition features the four works created to date, each a handmade box approximately 10 x 8 inches in size, containing several prints. Many of the prints reside in a sleeve or envelope and require viewers to pull them out and unfold or unroll them. Each artist starts by making one work and sending it to the other two. They respond by creating and mailing their next prints. The exchange repeats three to six times. The process requires all works to adhere to the requirements of U.S. Postal Service mail, that is, be able to be flattened and small enough to fit in an envelope.
In the exhibition, visitors can handle and interact with a sample gift print, Mise-en-Scène. The title refers to stage design and the arrangement of actors in a theatre or film production. Viewers can contribute to wood+paper+box’s ongoing visual dialogue by posting images of their own arrangements of prints from the box on Instagram, using the hashtag #woodpaperbox.
They met in Japan in 2004 at an artist residency and studied mokuhanga, the traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking technique. Artworks by wood+paper+box carry the spark born of shared experience and are created through collaboration, interaction, and friendship. In the current challenging social and political time, wood+paper+box offers a moment to slow down and share in the beauty and comfort of communal creativity.
The 2023 Gift Print Mise-en-Scène is available to the public for purchase. Friends of the Beach Museum of Art at any level receive a 25% discount on the price. For more information about becoming a Friend or purchasing a gift print, please call 785-532-7718 or email beachart@ksu.edu.
An Exhibition Review of wood+paper+box in your hands is published in the Openings: Studies in Book Art journal by College Book Art Association. The review is written by Kimi Kitada, curator based in Kansas City and currently the Gallery & Programs Manager at Charlotte Street Foundation. Read the review at https://beach.k-state.edu/documents/Exhibition-Review_wood-paper-box-in-your-hands.pdf
