Coda is the title of a series of drawings started in 2006 by Norwegian artist Mette Stausland. The title stems from the term as it is used in a music score, to denote a fresh theme usually at the end of the passage, which indicates the closing of one phase and the opening up of another. “Codetta” is the diminutive of Coda, as the book offers a glimpse into a selection of the Coda drawings as a series.

Accompanying the pictures are texts by Ina Boesch – poetic apercus or fictionalised episodes from the life and work of Mette Stausland based on in-depth conversations with the artist. Drawings and texts interact in a subtle way, while each stand alone, too, as pieces of art in their own right. The sparse and clear language of both the visual artist and the writer is finely brought to the fore in the book design by Marco and Theodora Müller.

Schwabe Verlag, by Ina Boesch and Mette Stausland, 2013, 21 x 28 cm, 76 pages, 35 illustrations, hardcover book