Evelyn Eller

Communication Language

Designed as a wall hanging, this work is a collage of torn papers on black boards depicting the history and variety of language. The work is constructed of panels honoring Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Arabic, Spanish, American Sign Language, Braille, mathematics and music.

Arist Evelyn Eller said: “My primary medium is collage, although I have painted for many years and worked in printmaking and artists’ books. I have a lifelong interest in travel and other cultures. While looking through a bookstore in Istanbul, I found two old handwritten Korans. I have taken pages from other languages, using a circle format to show the interrelatedness of different cultures and their commonality.”

Press: Constructed by the Artist
Date: 1999
Number and Edition: 1 of 1
Size: 7.5” x 17”

Reliquary for the Book

This meditation on the fate of printed books in a computer age features collages of text fragments over computer-generated pages and handmade paper covers with a hand-sewn twine binding. A black handmade paper envelope shroud with a Velcro closure houses the piece. 

Eller uses her paper text collages to explore the information age and books. Phrases including “information super highway,” “death of the book” and “obsolete book” are printed across the page, interspersed with the words of the title. She poses the question that continues to be asked as computers make inroads into daily life: "Are Books Obsolete?"

Press: Constructed by the Artist
Date: 1996
Number and Edition: 1 of 9
Size: 5” x 5.5”

Words and Music

Evelyn Eller’s texts are exercises in the juxtaposition of visual fragments. Boards covered in black cloth feature paper titles on the front. The interior pages fold out to the top, bottom, right and left. The pages can then lay out in a “T” or fold back in to form “sculptures” of language.

Artist Evelyn Eller said: “Copying old family documents, photographs and sheet music with a brown cartridge to give the appearance of age, I incorporated these images in my work on immigration and memory. I prefer working with handmade paper, oriental paper, and my own painted papers to achieve my effects. Moreover, I use a copy machine in order not to destroy original documents.”

Press: Printed by the Artist
Date: 2003
Number and Edition: 3 of 4
Size: 8” x 10”