graphic art

Sally Blundell

High Wire by Lloyd Jones and Euan Macleod (Massey University Press, 2020), 96pp., $45

The air up here is clear. High above the clamour of the city and the rush and roar of the ocean, above the islands, the headlands and the setting sun, a solitary figure slouches towards Australia on the single drawn line of a high-wire cable.

In James Marsh’s 2008 documentary Man on Wire, a New York bystander, anchored to the footpath by a heavy coat and bags of shopping, wept as she watched the impossibly frail figure of French high-wire artist Philippe Petit walk, kneel and wheel on a cable drawn 411 metres above ground between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. [Read more…]

Claire Mabey

Mansfield & Me: A graphic memoir by Sarah Laing (Victoria University Press, 2016), 336pp, $35

There is something to be said for judging a book by its cover. Particularly a book within which the images are as important, as lively and revealing, as the text. The cover of Sarah Laing’s graphic memoir Mansfield & Me is striking in its intensity. At each glance, it is alive with the skill of the artist: the hand-coloured faces of Laing and Mansfield face off. Mansfield’s brown eyes and Laing’s blue are locked, while the vivid geometry of the wallpaper behind them is concealed by smokey smudges or shadows. Katherine’s stare is challenging and bold, while Laing’s is less certain, almost pleading. This cover is at once crisp and present, ambiguous and dreamlike – a perfectly concise indication of the life stories and the relationship to come. [Read more…]

The Air Up Here

Bringing Katherine Mansfield to Life