About my Printmaking Practice
The philosophy of printmaking fascinates me. The printmaker captures the fleeting, almost intangible impression of the original mark, holding it delicately in space as an imprinted memory. Every print is, as William Kentridge dubbed, a “trace” of the original surface; a clue left behind like an artifact. Layers of printed images become a historical record of the concept of image itself, revealing the mystery of image-making the way pottery shards combine to unveil an ancient vase.
One of my core disciplines is printmaking. The combination of inherited tradition and its application to emerging, contemporary techniques offers the perfect, time-defying unity of approach. Prior, I spent a decade studying traditional Chinese brush painting (another philosophical art), since the idea of a “living line” is essential to its approach. Well executed brush strokes are thought to contain the very elements of living form: bone, nerve, flesh, blood, and Qi (vital breath), generating a wholly realized organism: forming being from non-being. There is something complimentary about print and brush, trace and formation, a relationship I continually explore by combining these mediums formally. Since my background spans art, philosophy, literature, poetry and archaeology, I naturally engage in interdisciplinary layering—a mixed media of ideas and surfaces.
One of my core disciplines is printmaking. The combination of inherited tradition and its application to emerging, contemporary techniques offers the perfect, time-defying unity of approach. Prior, I spent a decade studying traditional Chinese brush painting (another philosophical art), since the idea of a “living line” is essential to its approach. Well executed brush strokes are thought to contain the very elements of living form: bone, nerve, flesh, blood, and Qi (vital breath), generating a wholly realized organism: forming being from non-being. There is something complimentary about print and brush, trace and formation, a relationship I continually explore by combining these mediums formally. Since my background spans art, philosophy, literature, poetry and archaeology, I naturally engage in interdisciplinary layering—a mixed media of ideas and surfaces.
