Winter Drawings marks the first collaboration between Csimota Publishing and ArchivorumxM, presenting a quietly powerful book by British visual artist Peter Liversidge. Created during the winter of 2024–2025, the drawings in the book capture fleeting impressions of trees and fragments of trees, hovering like fragile shadows on translucent pages. Printed on semi-transparent paper, the images recall the poetics of Far Eastern shadow theatres: immobile silhouettes that nonetheless seem to breathe, tremble, and shift as the pages turn.
What appears at first as a series of solitary forms gradually becomes something else entirely. Trees without roots and branches without leaves float unfinished in a surrounding void. The viewer stands outside space and time. Nothing feels fixed, yet everything seems on the verge of movement: the crack of branches, the slow creak of wood, the quiet violence of destruction, and the promise of regrowth. As the pages are layered, the trees overlap and multiply, forming a dense, almost impenetrable forest. The book becomes an object that performs its own transformation — from isolation to collectivity, from stillness to motion.
This duality of stillness to motion is embedded not only in the imagery but in the physical construction of the book
The extreme delicacy and fragility of the interior paper of the Winter Drawings publication make vulnerability palpable, while the sequential layering of translucent pages invites the reader to contemplate change, ephemerality, and the passing of seasons. Featuring adhesive bonding on Refit Wool Black board (previously here), the interior pages of the book are printed on IBO 60 g/m² (previously here), a semi-transparent paper that allows branches to intertwine visually across layers, producing a subtle sense of movement and depth.
When choosing the paper, the idea was to print the graphics on very thin, translucent paper that would reflect the artist’s original intention of representing fragility and ephemerality.
For Csimota Publishing, the material choice was both conceptual and technical. As Dóra Csányi explains, “We are happy to share it with you, because it was not as easy to realize our idea technically as we had thought at the beginning. When choosing the paper, the idea was to print the graphics on very thin, translucent paper that would reflect the artist’s original intention of representing fragility and ephemerality.” Initially, Bible paper was considered, but production constraints and colour requirements led the team to continue searching. “That’s when we came across IBO paper. This is a wonderful paper that perfectly matched our ideas, and the result proves it.”
The choice of cover material was equally deliberate, conceived as a counterbalance to the fragile interior. “The goal here was to counterbalance the slightly stiff, sterile material of the interior. We wanted to choose a cover that was soft, colorful, and textured, something that brought back a little bit of nature, the roughness of tree branches, but without any additional coating. I think we made the right choice, because it feels good to hold and touch the book, like a little treasure.” Here, tactility becomes meaning: the reader does not only see fragility — they feel it.
A winter ritual of drawing
For more than 20 years, Peter Liversidge has returned to his Winter Drawings as a yearly ritual. The works included in this book were created between November 1st and the last day of February, with each drawing made in pairs, as mirrored trees that echo one another. “The Winter Drawings in the book are made only during a 4 month period in the year. The resulting drawings are always made in pairs, using both endpapers, front and back”, Liversidge explains. Returning to this project year after year functions as a kind of reset for the artist. “I’ve returned to the project as it acts almost as a yearly reset. The drawings are a very important part of an approach to thinking without thinking, allowing the intuitive part of making to take over.”
The Winter Drawings in the book are made only during a 4 month period in the year. The resulting drawings are always made in pairs, using both endpapers, front and back.
While the process is ritualistic, the drawings are not static. Each winter brings subtle shifts in form and composition. “This year is a good example in that the drawings with multiple branches and overlapping structures are new this year, it took me quite a lot of time to convince myself that it was a good idea to do that!” The winter timeframe is essential to the work’s meaning. “I like the idea of representational drawing of trees that are actually totally fabricated and invented as they are made, yet are still accurate depictions of trees. I stop on the last day of February so that there is a finite timeline each year. They are a very zen activity, and I could easily carry on, but I choose not to.”
From series to sequence: the book as narrator
Although Winter Drawings exists as an ongoing series, the book format introduces a new logic. “I was very interested in making the book, as the sequential nature of the pages suggests a narrative. Originally, the book was to be without any words; the narrative, or not, was implied or introduced by the sequence. Without explanation and without context, the book becomes its own narrator — a collaboration between the materials and printed pages and the original work.”
Without explanation and without context, the book becomes its own narrator — a collaboration between the materials and printed pages and the original work.
Liversidge’s broader practice frequently works in series and long-term projects, often engaging with documentation and archiving as conceptual tools. This sensibility resonates with the book as an archive of a specific winter, a time-bound collection of fragile gestures, preserved in print yet visually unstable as the translucent pages overlap and shift.
Collaboration and constraint in a creative process
Working with Csimota Publishing and ArchivorumxM also introduced a productive tension between artistic freedom and formal constraint. “I really enjoy the reduction in freedom, reducing the possibilities for making work. Without the input of others, sometimes the work can be flat and potentially uninteresting. Dóra from Csimota Publishing was able to introduce elements I would never have considered.”
The result is a book that feels both restrained and generous: materially minimal, conceptually expansive. The recycled materials and carefully considered production choices echo the themes of fragility, responsibility, and care embedded in the drawings themselves. Winter Drawings by Peter Liversidge is not just a documentation of a series of artworks, but a carefully staged encounter between image, material, and time. As the translucent pages accumulate, the solitary trees become a forest — and the reader becomes part of the transformation.
Purchase the book online at Winter Drawings – Csimota Gyerekkönyvkiadó – Új utakon járunk!
Images © Gábor VALUSKA