A Visual Feast: The Art of Laura Davidson and David Esslemont

On February 21, 2019, Bromer Gallery will bring together book art, watercolors, paper construction, woodcuts, and drawing in a new exhibition, titled “A Visual Feast: The Art of Laura Davidson and David Esslemont”. Uniting these various forms of artistry and craftsmanship not only encompasses the breadth of Bromer Gallery’s mission to explore the many facets of the book as art, but it also dovetails seamlessly with Bromer Booksellers, which for over fifty years has been a leader in the trade of rare and beautiful books.

Based out of Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood, Laura Davidson expresses her talents through a range of media, including books, drawings, prints, and paper mosaics. Many of her works, and the materials that make them – paper, gold leaf, and found objects – evoke a vintage, nostalgic affect, even as they are made into new forms. During the exhibition, visitors will be able to experience Davidson’s love for the past-made-present through her prints of familiar bridges, her drawings of birds against wallpaper backgrounds, her tunnel books, and her replicas of keys, locks, and scissors crafted entirely out of paper. David Esslemont, born in England and currently residing in northeast Iowa, focuses much of his artistic attention on the interaction between nature, art, and humanity. Esslemont often directly engages with nature in order to best present its nuanced beauty. He participates in his own visual narratives in his series of “food” books, Pizza from Scratch, Taxi Driver Curry, and Chili: A Recipe, all of which were published by Solmentes Press – his fine press that bears his name in anagram. Even his more abstract works, such as his watercolor illustrations for The Wordsworth Trust’s 2007 edition of Wordsworth’s The Prelude, adopt the same sort of creative intimacy that draws the viewer in and invites both comforting familiarity and reverent distance.