Muut and the Monkey

As human beings we are social creatures and we need interaction with one another in order to survive. Being alone affects how you interpret the world around you. Eventually, after enough time spent apart from anyone you begin to regurgitate your own thoughts and feelings. When you are social with others it affects everything, your view of the world completely changes after being alone.
I have created an artist book to illustrate this idea of a drastic change that a friend will bring. I made a story about a robot named Muut, Muut has been wandering the desert for a long time. Both Muut and the desert are a metaphor for the numbness of being alone. But Muut doesn’t stay alone, he sees something in the distance and walks towards it. Muut finds a monkey who becomes his friend. The monkey and the change he brings to Muuts life is a metaphor for the way a friend will cause you to reinterpret the world around you that you grew accustomed to when you were alone.
The story is told through eleven 13.5 x 6 in. relief prints carved from un-mounted linoleum and hand colored using gouache and ink. The text of the story is handwritten on the left leaf of the spread, the relief print is on the right leaf. The prints at the beginning of the story are more simple and the color is sparing, as the story progresses the prints become more complex and colorful symbolizing a drastic change.