Sunset Sunrise: Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

This book combines diverse material from multiple sources to create a poetic overview of the artist and her output. There are many different qualities of textual material – poetry, essay, interview, commentary, biography, alongside archival photographs, installation views and object works and paper drawings.

Front cover and endpapers carry geometric motifs – Dodecagon, single point, square, pentagon and hexagon each inscribed in a square and each relating to Islamic Geometry and symbolism (a point as the individual, the square the four seasons, the pentagon the five senses, the hexagon the human body and the circle as the universe). These forms underpin much of the artist’s work. I used these devices (in stark monotone) as a holding device for the complex colourful and light-reflectant work within.

The cover typography is a visual play on the sun setting and rising above the horizon.

A metallic ink was chosen as a way of relating the reflective character of much of the work in a print context.

At the centre of the book are the titual works – Sunset, and Sunrise, and these are paired one on each spread with a corresponding graphic circle – one positive and one negative printed in metallic ink.