September 25, 2024

Most of you may not have seen my undergraduate thesis show at Penn in 2003. I just typed 2023 and erased it… It’s hard to believe it was more than twenty years ago. 

I made a series of six painting/collage on wood panel for this exhibition and called it “Book of Hours.”

The images showed the spaces where I moved about throughout the day. It starts with a “book cover” and moves on the second image with an oval, like the window of an airplane. The third and fourth images contain parts of the Fisher art library. This is the space I adored the most during my stay at Penn.  Fifth one was one of the drawing classrooms at Charles Adam building and the last image is from my bedroom in a shared apartment in west Philadelphia. 

I don’t know when I first fell in love with books of hours, probably during one of the art history classes.  I think anyone who comes across any reproductions of the  illuminations from Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry by Limbourg brothers would find it hard not to fall under its spell. 

The Liberians and conservators in Europe and the US have digitalized many of them and people can find these images easily on the web. 

I would search up these images once in a while, when I missed them.

And for the first time I am holding one in my hand. 

At a special collection library in Princeton, I have a privilege of smelling the pages, looking at chipped paint flakes and feel the gold leaf on parchment with bare finger.

I am so grateful.