Art In Communication

The “Exquisite Doodle” Artist Project, Post 21

by Alex Mitchell

Kristine Suhr - The butler did it!

I was very much looking forward to Kristine’s Exquisite Doodle box arriving from Denmark.  She is always full of surprises just like her mechanical paintings!  Photo: “A Dive in the Sea of Books,” ©Kristine Suhr

I was delighted to find that Kristine had doodled and pasted on her scroll, and also painted the interior of her box.  I had left her a few “clues” on the scroll which she immediately used to create a little murder mystery of her own…  

As children, Kristine and I were convinced that we were born to be special agents. We ended up being artists instead, however we keep our detective skills sharp by writing each other “Top Secret” letters in code or with invisible ink.

Kristine is the pop-up queen par excellence.  People call on her to make pop-up books where she does the paper engineering, printing, compiling, and even the bookbinding.  http://www.pop-up.dk/english/index.htm.
Photo: “The Pop-up Book,” ©Kristine Suhr

Does this boring meeting feel familiar?  Kristine has a knack for taking an all too familiar situation and then giving it her signature touch - a funny twist or a bit of nonsense.  It’s amazing how sometimes half a dozen parts of a mechanical painting will move by the turn of a crank.  A great way to see how her works transform is by watching her mini-videos on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/kristinesuhr/videos.
Photo: “Meeting,” ©Kristine Suhr

In honor of nonsense, I can’t help but share an old painting I did where the little birds can be moved around on the painting via velcro.  It’s something I created  “just because.”  Photo: “Nonsense,” ©2006 Alex Mitchell

Here is the way the scroll turned out after Kristine doodled in the white spaces I left for her!  See Post 11 to compare.  Scroll pic 1 of 3,

scroll pic 2 of 3,

and scroll pic 3 of 3.

Kristine’s website is quite clever.  By clicking on a little camera icon to the left of each image a short video pops up to show what happens when Kristine turns the crank or pulls the handle.  You can watch how a bowl of fruit changes into a bowl of heads, for example:  http://www.pop-up.dk/english/index.htm.
Photos: “Nature (almost) Morte,” ©Kristine Suhr

See, I told you she painted the interior of her box!  I don’t know about you, but I am very suspicious of that “finger” gun…

Oh, and if you haven’t solved the murder mystery yet, I’ll save you the trouble… The butler did it!