After Image
After Image begins with the illustrated pages of Victorian books collected by Israel over many years. The works emerge through processes of acid migration within the ageing paper itself, where unstable lignins slowly break down over time and faint residual images appear on the reverse side of the page.
Israel isolates these fragile impressions from the books in which they were found, treating the act of removal as part of the image’s completion. She is interested in the evidence of what time does to things, and in the way images continue to evolve materially as paper slowly deteriorates. Israel has described the works as a form of long exposure, where images emerge slowly through time, deterioration and material change. She has also described the process as feeling “as if the skeleton within the image is becoming visible.”
In some works, traces of the engraved images also appear on the thin sheets of tissue paper originally placed between the pages as protective guards. These delicate secondary impressions are among the most fragile works in the series, where images hover close to disappearance and seem to emerge slowly at the threshold of visibility.
After Image, 2024
After Image (Tissue Paper), 2023
After Image (Tissue Paper), 2024
After Image (Tissue Paper), 2023
After Image, 2024
After Image, 2024
© Jo Israel 2026