Philippe Saltel & Mathew Staunton
Poison Trees

Poison Trees is the first product of an ongoing dialogue between etching and poetry, a project born within the walls of the CCI itself when an Irish writer and printing historian encountered the Centre's technical manager, a practicing printmaker. The result is both organic and symmetrical. Philippe Saltel's etchings attempt to reveal the universal in the individual: each of his trees is the quintessence of all trees and his tree line is the edge of the dark woods that haunt every children’s story. Mathew Staunton's poetry is a journey in the opposite direction. Moving from the universal to the personal, he navigates his way through the images, embracing some and scrutinising others from a respectful distance. When text and image chime together, with no small thanks to Pierre Bérart’s letterpress printing, new itineraries are opened up. Ultimately, however, it is up to the spectator to forge his or her own path.