A Rainbow Reader is a work of creative non-fiction which looks at colour from the personal perspective of Tessa Laird, an artist and writer based in New Zealand.

In 2009, Tessa Laird started a Doctorate of Fine Arts investigating the (r)evolutionary power of colour, from a personal, and political, transformative angle. A Rainbow Reader is the result of that study, but it is no ordinary academic treatise. Consisting of six chapters, one on each spectral hue, colour becomes a catalyst for speculative writing encompassing art history, literary criticism, personal anecdote, philosophy and anthropology.

Each chapter of A Rainbow Reader is bound in the appropriately coloured card; together, the six chapters form a rainbow spine and operate as a kind of edition-based artwork, a veritable rainbow on your bookshelf.

Tessa Laird is a writer, artist and lecturer, who recently earned her Doctorate of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, with the exhibition and thesis Sheshnag's Coloured Canopy: The Rainbow and the Kaleidoscope as Metaphor and Method. Recent exhibitions include Reading Room with Peter Lange at Objectspace, Auckland, Chupacabra Candelabra at Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland, and Freedom Farmers at the Auckland Art Gallery. For nine years Tessa taught on the Contextual Studies programme at the Manukau School of Visual Arts, and she currently lectures at the Elam School of Fine Arts. Tessa’s history includes the co-founding and editing of magazines Monica Reviews Art and Log Illustrated, as well as being the director of The Physics Room in 1997-1998. In 1999 Tessa received a professional development grant from Creative New Zealand to travel to the US. She stayed in Los Angeles until 2003, working at China Art Objects Galleries, the Lord Mori Gallery, and interning with Semiotext(e). She has been a regular art columnist for the New Zealand Listener and writes for a range of art magazines and catalogues.

This publication was funded by Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa, with assistance from the Chartwell Trust and ArtExplore.

Published by Clouds
October 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9876593-7-8

Softcover
192 pages
English

Edition: 1000
Dimensions: 135 x 210 x 22mm
Weight: 380gm
Individually shrinkwrapped

NZD$25

“What a splendid work! It enriches my everyday perceptual experience.”
— Alphonso Lingis

“Each paragraph seems to explode with fascinating ideas.”
— Stephen Muecke

"Meticulously researched, beautifully written, and intensely readable."
— Chris Kraus

“Nice tone. Nice ideas.”
— Michael Taussig

“What a buzz!!”
— Edward Colless