Rosaire Appel (NYC) is an ex-writer/ graphic artist exploring the betweens of reading/looking/listening. She makes books (commercially printed, hand-made, and recycled), ink drawings, and digital drawings. Her subject is, basically, abstract visual language. Her book As It Were (2010) explores asemic writing by way of 17 stories, each in a different language. Asemic writing has no semantic value and involves no codified system of marks: it looks like writing but cannot be conventionally read. She refers to the series of drawings presented here as 'asemic maps.' They reference maps forms but are non-functional. She is interested in the rich vocabularies of historical maps and the narrative potential they offer. This map series is related stylistically to her abstract comics, many of which have been published in literary magazines and journals.

The maps also exist as digital prints, 11x16", See: www.rosaireappel.blogspot.com.

Her website is: www.rosaireappel.com.