Wednesday, October 24, 2007



CROSSING MALI

Brent Coutts with illustrations by Gavin Hurley. $30

An especially appealing privately published small book which was launched in Auckland last night.

Gavin Hurley is an Auckland-based artist who graduated from Elam in 1998. He is represented by Anna Bibby Gallery and developed this recent body of work in response to the poem "Crossing Mali" by Brent Coutts.

Crossing Mali was written in 1997 when Brent Coutts and David Josland travelled through Mali to walk to the Bandiagara Escarpment where the Dogon people live. They travelled to Djenne, Mopti and Timbuktu along the Niger River.

The poem was firts read publicly by the author at Autofocus - Gay Writers Do Biography as part of the Auckland Hero Festival in 2000.

Brent and Gavin worked together to combine poem and images to mark ten years since the journey was undertaken.

A small, special book where language and art have come together in sublime form. A collector's item.



Available from Parsons Bookshop in Auckland or from Brent Coutts at brent_coutts@hotmail.com or postal orders to Brent at 3/20 Hayden Street, Freemans Bay, Auckland.



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