When my sketchbooks evolved to consider the ‘blank’ page, I was drawn to the memory of college examination papers, that occasionally has pages in them that contained no material; only the words “THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK”. This in itself is a contradiction; the page cannot be blank because of the message printed on it, yet the need is there to tell the reader that the page does not contain any other content; if the page were left with nothing on it at all the reader might believe it to be a mistake. So what if the page wasn’t left blank on purpose? What then? It implies that there is something missing; something that should be occupying that page. It gives the impression that we as readers cannot comprehend the reason for a blank page. There must be something on it. The purpose of a page is not to be blank. That is why the message is there to reassure us. “THIS PAGE NOT INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK” means exactly that; the page is not supposed to be empty and it isn’t. The message on the page states the exact reason that it is there and is not contradictory unlike the first statement. This leads onto the piece that I made in response to this, using the studio wall rather than the page as the ‘blank’ space. The two wall texts are presented on opposing walls stemming from the corner, similar to the layout of an open book. Like the book pages, one statement is contradictory whereas the other is self-aware.
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AuthorThird Year BA Hons Fine Art student studying at Falmouth University Archives
April 2017
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