Gabby Cooksey – Pangolin Pandemic

Artist Statement

Pangolin Pandemic is about two stories scaled into one. The imagery shows the life of a pangolin while it is being poached; alive, curled up in defense, killed, hung up, and then descaled while also telling a story from the plague in 1348 with Francesco Petrarch’s words. Pangolins were thought to have been the cause of covid back in 2020 while I was doing my research. Things have changed since then but people are more aware of pangolins and their plight to just live their lives.

Materials & Technique

Pangolin images made with cloth and paper. Letterpress printed at Springtide Press. Arches Text Wove washed in an acrylic/methyl-cellulose mixture. Montage sur onglets binding with goat skin spine. Finished with a gloss varnish spray. Vellum “pangolin tail” painted with alcohol ink, accented with gold foil and coated in wax. Housed in a custom clamshell box with colophon embedded in the tray.

About Gabby Cooksey

Gabby Cooksey lives and works in Tacoma, WA as a bookbinder and artist. In 2014, she received her diploma for Bookbinding at North Bennet Street School in Boston, MA. Her love for odd materials, storytelling and well crafted books are a good combination to producing unique books. Cooksey’s books are included in the collections of the University of Washington, Boston Athenaeum, Library of Congress and many more private and public collections across the world. 

boundbycooksey.com