Traces Within, Eva Voutsaki

Traces Within, Eva Voutsaki, UK A tri-fold book which consists of three booklets hand stitched on the cover. It can be viewed in 2,197 possible combinations of images (thirteen to the 3rd power). Images from the long-term project Traces Within. Nightscapes, lonely figures, myths, fantasies, dreams and nightmares. Vanessa Winship’s text: She told me she was the daughter of a farmer from an Island I visited a long time ago. Sometimes meetings are short, intense, sometimes they last a lifetime. What is it to be invited into a diary, to be offered a key to unlock what lies within? Long memories triggered by each lived moment, if shared, to know and understand that we are not alone. Sometimes we know where and when. Her silent footsteps tread upon a shabby red carpet. She scans what lies before her, stopping just long enough to make a single frame and move on. With tenderness she looks up to take in a string of fragile paper lanterns along a corridor we don’t know where it’s leading. Always walking. What is it to know joy on seeing the free movement of the figure as it glides so effortlessly through water, sound muted by its vast expanse that surrounds and supports it? Only once does the figure come up for air. What is it to appreciate the sensation of a retreating tide? To silently observe a solitary figure who seems feeling and measuring the air. Who is the woman who patiently waits for her to catch up, catch up at the pace of the human heart? Always walking. What is it to feel the sensation of mist as she steps upon the earth so close behind her sheep, or to see her own breath as she moves long a car-less snow-covered road? Along these tracks and pathway there’s always light. Sometimes a flood of artificial light that renders expressionless the figures that move within it. A dog instinctively slips into the shadows. But more often it’s the light cast by the moon, or the light when day becomes night or night day. She follows those figures, first at proximity, and then a little further away, less sure, still she stays, and still she follows. These are moments of a certain kind of solitude that still manage to find a connectedness. Always walking always walking. Printed on offset Lithoprint by Pureprint printers using vegetable-based inks. Embossed title on cover. Book opens to 21 x 88.8 cm. Printspeed offset paper 140 gsm for the inner pages and 300 gsm for the cover. Hand bound by the artist (Eva Voutsaki). Book design by Emily Macaulay. Writing by Vanessa Winship. For more info / to order visit: