markevans.design

Title — Christian Dimick

Client — Grace Gallery

Year — 2024

Discipline — Art direction & book design

Book design and production for Christian Dimick and Grace gallery.

For Grace Gallery’s first publication their director and curator Emil set the brief up with a strong collaborative focus. We met with Christian at his studio and in turn talked about his practice and the intention of Christian's forthcoming show at Grace. Christian shared books or monographs that resonated and in turn suggestions were made for the approach and documentation. Installation work was immediately felt to be redundant and too grand for such a young artist at this stage in his career. Emil was particularly inspired by Christian’s sketchbooks and the drawing process he undertakes within his work. Unique from his large scale paintings but as integral to his work, collectively we decided upon using these small Moleskines as the focus for the publication.

The more we discussed and analysed the sketch books the more we moved away from a simple documentation approach (referencing Nigel Shafer’s brilliant Workbooks by Loose Joints as an example) and instead decided on creating a facsimile of one of his Moleskines.

Capturing the tactile quality of each mark, whether it be pencil or crayon was as essential to finish of the book as replicating the Singer binding or the cover stock. This being the gallery’s first publication they wanted it be a calling card for the gallery and to also make it as affordable and accessible as possible. Having discussed the production costs, having it retail at around $65 didn’t seem appropriate to the essence of the book. The plan to make the books retail at a similar price to the actual Moleskine sketch books became a large part of the challenge. As result we took it upon ourselves to undertake as much of the production inhouse as possible. Having sourced paper that matched as best we could the Moleskine stock we then out sourced printing and trimming before assembling the cover folders, debossing the logo, perforating and scoring the pages before Singer binding and folding each book.

To quote Grace’s notes — “The object of Pictures seems to have been taken directly from the studio, lifted from the Painter’s desk while the painter is still at work. It offers a glimpse into an emerging world, deliberately not sense-making, and open to all possibilities ahead.”