In Quiet Rooms Young Girls Are Writing Poetry

Hardcover bound artist's book of archival pigment ink prints, edition of 200

In Quiet Rooms Young Girls Are Writing Poetry is an artist’s book that reproduces David Rathman's war-themed watercolors. The paintings depict tanks, planes, warships and helicopters. As with Rathman's cowboy and car pieces, the imagery is paired with hand-written texts and legends. Using "language in a paradoxical way to confront the imagery," Rathman avoids a head-on collision with the "heaviness" of his subject.

According to the artist, "There's a lot of indirection and evasion going on; to see these aggressive menacing subjects twisting with uncertainty struck me as humorous and--in a sideways, minor way--profound." Like a series of memento mori greeting cards, Rathman's book is sometimes morose, sometimes playful, with the artist addressing "serious and ordinary issues: death, fracture, joy, compulsion, testosterone and deliverance."

• Published by Location Books, 2011
• Hardcover, 12.75 x 17.25 in.
• 20 pages