old work.

This piece was made for the exhibition The Final Frontier 

Zoe Brand 2011

“Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine”

Pages from a 1970's Penguin publication of George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', ink

Inspired by the film:

Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

As the saying goes, ‘the movie is never as good as the book’. There is just something about the written word that allows such personal interpretation and makes it so powerfully evocative. Not surprisingly, the film Fahrenheit 451 is not as good as the dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury upon which it is based. Ironically, there is something quite apt about this. The movie presents a future where a literate populace poses a threat to the prevailing order and Firemen are employed to burn all books. Montag, the main protagonist, is one such Fireman, and his encounter with a condemned book hoarder, an old lady who would rather burn with her books than live without them, leads him to question the idea of book burning. Interestingly, the title refers to the supposed temperature at which books burn.

I have quite a penchant for text and the written word, and this is often reflected in my work. Needless to say, I thought this film was a rather appropriate choice.

Zoe Brand