Piece of Paper Press Publication Launch, Andrew Mottershead, TONES (POPP.046)

Join us for the launch of TONES by Andrew Mottershead, a publication released by Piece of Paper Press in association with Matt’s Gallery as part of the archival display Thirty-one Years of Piece of Paper Press: artists’ books, artworks and ephemera, 1994–2025. The book will be given away free during the evening, and will then be a free giveaway to gallery visitors while stocks last (to 23 March).

Deceptively simple, Mottershead’s contribution to the Piece of Paper Press series is a slow-burn joke that gathers a succession of two-word names for different shades of white: ghost white, off white, bone white, etc. Significantly, although the book is made the same way as all previous titles in the series (i.e. a printed A4 sheet folded in half three times, progressively, across its shortest dimension) the production process is here arrested at that point. For the first time in the series, TONES is published both unstapled and untrimmed, so must be unfolded and re-folded by the reader. In so doing, TONES both honours and illuminates the Piece of Paper Press design.

Artist Andrew Mottershead works with text, audio, performance, and digital media. His interest lies in language and exploring how it can affect the experience of a situation or place. This publication coincides with his solo art installation, The Template Will Sway, commissioned by Morden Libraries in South London (to 16 March 2025). As part of the art duo French & Mottershead he has been a Research Fellow at The Bartlett School of Architecture, Artist in Residence for the City of Copenhagen, Guest Artist at the British Science Festival, Thinker in Residence at The Live Art Development Agency, and Artist in Residence at the National Review of Live Art. He has created work for galleries, museums, libraries, shops, forests, boats, online broadcasts, public footpaths, and domestic spaces to intervene viscerally in patterns, routines and images of daily life. His collaborative work has been commissioned by Tate Modern, The Photographers’ Gallery, Dark Mofo, In Between Time, Royal Botanical Gardens (Melbourne), Norfolk and Norwich Festival, Estuary Biennial, Brighton Festival, Guandong Times Museum, Anti Festival of Contemporary Art, and he has exhibited works in galleries and art organisations across the UK and internationally.

Free no booking required

Piece of Paper Press is an ongoing artists’ book series founded by author Tony White in 1994. Each book is made from a single A4 sheet, printed both sides then folded, stapled and trimmed by hand. Piece of Paper Press editions are always given away free.

Tony White is the author of novels including The Fountain in the Forest and Foxy-T, as well as one work of non-fiction and numerous short stories. A former writer in residence at the Science Museum, he is currently an RLF Fellow at Royal Holloway University of London, and Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing at Birkbeck. Since 1994, White has edited and published the artists’ book series Piece of Paper Press. His next novel Phantom at the Feast – the follow-up to The Fountain in the Forest – is published in November 2025.

Thirty-one years of Piece of Paper Press: artists’ books, artworks and ephemera, 1994–2025 will take place in the Outset Archive on the Mezzanine, alongside Katie Cuddon’s exhibition No Dimensions in the gallery space. Both exhibitions will be open on the same dates and times, with their private views held together.