The Contemporary Print: 5x5
Presented in collaboration with PrintAustin

“My work is a form of storytelling. Inspired by the rich, high contrast illustrations found in illuminated texts, graphic novels and children’s fairy tales, the often-whimsical imagery and characters that I create are meant to provoke a sense of nostalgia and familiarity within the viewer. I work primarily in printmaking and print-based mixed media. Printmaking is my medium of choice due to its physical and problem-solving demands upon the artist, who at times must give in to the will of materials that often yield results that are not fully predictable. The constant communication between the matrix and the inks along with chemical alchemy inherently inform each stage of my image making process. In tandem with the history of print as a form of communication, I aspire to create visual language that transcends the prescriptive and often ephemeral nature of spoken words. My hope is that a broad audience is able to access the universality of the motifs that I employ, and once immersed in these narratives, they will then add to, alter, or re-imagine the intent of my original ideas based on their own assumptions and personal experiences.”

“The goal from Manifestations was to allow for a thorough self-examination of my mental health, specifically my struggle with anxiety and OCD. I wanted to manifest the fear and dismay I felt when I realized that I could not remain in control of myself. I use vultures and various birds of prey to depict the omnipresent oppressive feeling of my anxiety. They hover above my head and glare at me from the shadows as they wait for me to fail. I use family photographs and chemically transferred landscapes to hint at its possible origins. My appropriation of these captured moments allows me to revisit places or relationships that were a part of my upbringing. I printed repetitive frame by frame stills and exhaustingly detailed diagrams over objects and landscapes. These transparent diagrams represent my struggle with obsessive compulsive thoughts. Each piece is a confrontation of specific facet of my mental health struggle. This process allows me to come to terms and live with my reality.”

“It’s important for me to find productive ways of thinking. Central aspect of my work is the relation between materiality and immateriality, between substance and digital, and questioning of image manipulation today. I am interested in a relation between original and reproduction or analog process of work and computer-manipulated digital information. In the process of work, I combine the earliest reproduction process of woodcut and digital-generated bitmap image wherein in the final footprint appears complex shapes between raster bitmap image, the subtractive colour mix and wood grain. I understand the analog process of woodcut as (sculptural) removal of substance in a confrontation with combining digital images of wax figures, drawings and random internet photographs. In the field of art I am interested in the relation between ideological field, theory of contemporary art, fusion of “political portrait” and the modern concept of the internet “meme”. My work encroaches into fields of graphic prints, site-specific installation, painting, drawing, ready-made objects and photography.”

“My work redefines portraiture by expanding the boundaries of the print medium. By combining matrices that span the origins of the medium to the newest technologies, I create multi-faceted paper sculptures to explore how individuals are shaped by their familial network. This includes non-Western and Western traditional print processes, handmade paper, and post-digital techniques to expand the definition of printmaking and redefine portraiture. My practice is a means to connect with local, national, and international communities and individuals, including my portrait subjects and family networks, as well as traditional artisans and technicians for new technologies.

Print’s legacy continues to intersect with craft, tradition, multiplicity, and layering, through both traditional and new technologies. My work relies on these fundamental principles of printmaking as a means to break down ideas, then reconstitute them through matrices. My matrices now include Chinese woodblock prints, engravings, paper molds, life casts, 3D scans, and CNC routed molds. The resulting paper sculptures speak to layers of an individual, and the familial network that shapes them. They weave narratives about relationships that shape a person, and the emotional state of an individual, reaching beyond a traditional portrait.

My work interferes with expectations of the medium in order to expand its possibilities. I reconsider the stability provided by a matrix to produce varied outcomes, generating a new whole from the repetition of parts. The artwork interrogates the history of printmaking and papermaking, as well as their voice in contemporary art. I use print as a way of rethinking and reestablishing bonds to those nearest to me. In my exploration of people and relationships, my work creates new dialogues between traditional and cutting edge techniques, their practitioners, and contemporary communities.”

“Nursing an image out of its black womb into light has a primordial spiritual magic. I try to emphasize the singularity silence and loneliness of a form. What is missing in the shadows and is suggested provides the greatest potential. The Mezzotint Print technique has remained unchanged for the last 300 years. It achieves tonality by roughening the metal plate with a rocker to produce a rich black, creating a high level of tonal richness.”