Urban Myths and Legends

About

Artist-printmaker Mark Andrew Webber and publisher-illustrator Emma Wright have teamed up to present an exhibition inspired by the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses and the new Emma Press poetry anthology Urban Myths and Legends: Poems about Transformations.

Mark is exhibiting a selection from his Where in the World linocut city-maps series, including London and New York. He creates these maps by walking through the cities and collecting typography, from street signs, shop windows, posters and flyers. He then integrates these scraps of type into his map designs, which he painstakingly carves out onto sheets of lino. His most recent project, the Berlin map, is 22 square metres – too big for the walls of this exhibition space, though a print graces a wall in Erik Spiekermann's house. Mark is currently raising funds on Indiegogo for his next project, the Tokyo map.

Emma is exhibiting the drawings she created to illustrate Urban Myths and Legends: Poems about Transformations, the poetry anthology she also edited with Rachel Piercey. The poems in the anthology take the themes of transformation and urban myths as a jumping-off point, but for the illustrations Emma returned to Ovid's stories to create a personal response in ink and watercolours.

Urban Myths and Legends is the third in the series of anthologies inspired by Ovid's themes – the first two were A Poetic Primer for Love and Seduction: Naso was my Tutor (inspired by the Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris) and Homesickness and Exile: Poems about Longing and Belonging (inspired by the Tristia).

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mark Andrew Webber works primarily in linocut printing and specialises in painstakingly-researched typographic and geometric projects. His work has been featured in leading design magazines including Creative Review and Blueprint Magazine, and in 2007 he was awarded a prestigious Silver Cube award from the Art Directors Club of New York. He had his first solo exhibition, Wonderlust, at the Londonewcastle Project Space in London in 2014. He is based in Reading.

http://markandrewwebber.com/

markawebber@gmail.com

Emma Wright studied Classics at Brasenose College, Oxford. She founded the Emma Press in 2012 and has since published 29 poetry books, including themed poetry anthologies and single-author pamphlets. She designs all the book covers and illustrates most of the books, responding to the poets' work and adding her interpretations to the books. In 2015 she was awarded a grant from Arts Council England to run a poetry tour for children. She lives in Birmingham.

http://theemmapress.com/

queries@theemmapress.com