each sheet is 83 X 60 cm all hinged to concertina fold or exhibited as a single 480 cm length. Each sheet does include matched human/animal pairs but the arrangement is made to follow the jigsaw intersection suggested by the shape of the embossed plate edge. In other words the viewer has to sort out what goes with what. All these individual sheets are printed in editions of two or three as with most of the other sheets here.
The sheets shown above and below were bound into a large artists book. The details of this unique copy are:
Title: ZOOGNOMY: A COMPARATIVE ATLAS 2025
published by: cobalt editions, Queensland College of Art and Design Brisbane, Australia
Pohlmann Bookbinders, Camp Mountain, Qld, Australia [ at 83 x 60 cm this is the largest book ever bound by Fred Pohlmann]
The shaped copper plates feature images sourced from physiognomy and related popular texts 1650 – 2019. The etchings were originally exhibited in rectangular plate configurations as matched human and non-human animal resemblances at Edith Cowan University Gallery 25, Perth in 2019.
The shaped plates average around 20 cm high and total close to 180 individual plates, almost all are copper.
I have printe many variations using these plates since the 2019 showing, adding additional plates in recent time. However, the best solution to creating the made compression of so many human animal variations was the one I’ve now taken with anthropozoa series. Here I’ve cut the original shaped plates into square and rectangular sections to allow a geometric construction that creates abrupt and interesting abutments rather that using spacial separation.
As a result of the reshaping of the plates, the majority of the images below can no longer be printed as the full contoured human and animal heads have now been cropped to a square or rectangle.
A little selection I’ve put up in our White Space in the printshop. This gives an idea of the range of scale. Most are on Hahnemuehle paper 300 gsm and the bigger sheets are 85 x 120 cm. Some are 90 by 120 from the long 20 metre rolls.
The images on the right wall above show the grouping of comparisons with the same animals in this case Birds, Lion and Pig. Sometimes isolated animal etchings are included but in other cases just the human/animal pairs. Below is a selection of dogs along with a selection of dogs with other single animals. The same goes for horses and several other popular animals.
