2021
20 copies
Signed and numbered
37,5×25,5 cm
14.76×10.03 in.
16 pages leporello
Gouache stencils
Pigment print, silkscreen  



SO FAR SO GOOD is Elvire Bonduelle’s self-portrait. Fourteen short phrases - haikus, proverbs, folk wisdom and adages written or appropriated by the artist - are reproduced on a paper leporello that is meant to be opened and displayed everyday on a different page as a daily philosophical boost — the same way one would press and drink fresh citrus juice in the morning. Bonduelle’s characteristic light-heartedness is tonic.

The text compositions, drawn by the artist using “BONDUELLE ONE”, a special font designed by Elvire for her calligraphy, are reproduced with pigment printing. Originally rendered in black carbon pencil along colored grids, the texts are combined with pastel and vibrant colored gouache shapes — part of the artist’s visual alphabet and outlines of some of the tools used to design the “BONDUELLE ONE”.

SO FAR SO GOOD  is printed as a contemporary update to  “Le Procédé Jacomet”, the print-reproduction technique created by Daniel Jacomet in the early 1920’s that coupled collotype and “pochoirs” (stencils). Daniel Jacomet printed countless artworks, including most of the stunning drawings by Sonia Delaunay, Henri Matisse, Juan Miro, Jean Arp and many other artists for the major modern art publishers of that era. Three Star Books has worked with Elvire Bonduelle to reproduce — as facsimiles — her text compositions with pigment printing combined with old-school hand-applied gouache stencils.

A century after Jacomet developed his process, Elvire Bonduelle, a French artist living in Paris at the Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre, is re-interpreting the pochoir technique with Three Star Books. 

The publisher and the artist want to thank Yuan Cao and Lucile Moutot for their precious help in the production of “SO FAR SO GOOD”.



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