These paintings explore how the practice of reading can mark the chapters of our lives and heighten our experience of the present. To spend time with a book is to turn away, for a while, from the immediacy of the world in pursuit of something deeper.

A book that finds us at the right moment can inspire a personal turning of a page. The chapters of a life can be marked by the books read within it. In this way, books become more than objects; opening a once-read book may return us to a time, a place, or a person we once knew.

At its best, reading is an act of communion. Pages and palms turn upward in unison, the head bows, and the book and reader open together.

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- Andrew Payne