Sneak Peek Show

Our Sneak Peek show turned out pretty good. Thankfully we were able to pull an opening together and we had a fair number of people come out for it. Even though I've been taking a different direction with my current work, I thought I should still post the work from the show.

Artist Statement
The work I did in the Burren began as a series of experiments, each with an opportunity for exploration and discovery. What soon emerged was that the ideas I was experimenting with could be thought about in relation to two prefixes; trans -- across, beyond or through; and re -- once more, afresh or in return. More specifically, some of the words I thought about were transcend, transfer, translucent and rebirth, renew, reflect, remember. All of these words I was seeing in connection to the themes of tragedy, mortality, grief and the afterlife. Having experienced tragedy with the loss of my mother a little more than a year ago, these themes hold a personal meaning and significance to my grieving process. The video of the waves and the images of the sea glass represent visual metaphors for that process and the cycle of loss, grief and healing while the sunset series is part of my search for understanding the concept of heaven.

Octoprint

Today I demoed a transfer technique with wintergreen oil... I still need to photograph the results. So I'll post about this later when I have images to show.

But I finally got a chance to monoprint in class. This is the nifty little print I ended up with.

Transfering

One of the inherent things about printmaking is the transfer of an image. Transfers are a consistent theme in my work. I think I have a thesis topic forming. I'm not sure how to put it into words just yet but i think it will revolve around the transfer of image and possibly printmaking...

that being said... I've been learning new transfer techniques in my TA class that I'm excited to play around with in my studio. The other day I tried wintergreen oil and acetone transfers. They essentially liquefy the toner on a photo copy or laserjet print and allow for a transfer when you burnish it against a paper or surface. (I'll show examples when I take pictures) I'm going to have the chance to do the demo on this technique and test my teacher skills....eep!

Another method I'm going to experiment with tonight is an inkjet print on a waxy surface that lets the ink bead and stay wet so it can be transferred to paper. (examples to follow) For these I'm playing with my "Polaroid" style photos in photoshop with some layering and collage. I'm trying to combine images from nature and urban settings and build a tension of loss and destruction.

Photoshop File

Ink Jet Print

Photoshop File

Ink Jet Print

My results this round were...ok...I think I needed to wet the paper I was transferring to first. That should help it absorb the ink better. Plus I need a better burnisher. So I'll try printing again, perhaps tomorrow.