week five - the ghost of the lino

Following Rosemarie McGoldrick's comment on my post, I'm looking at the concept of Hauntology.  Initially I found a book blog in the guardian on line (www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/jun17/hauntology) which has pointed to many contemporary writers to investigate. (more of this later)

The idea of loss, absence, ghosts, also ties in with my research of Christopher Wool. Not only do his paintings incorporate the idea of mark making and rubbing out, adding and removal, addition and loss, but also he has been associated with "Process Art"  and an interest in abstract art and the process of painting.

Christopher Wool, Untitled 2003

Christopher Wool Tree Women (Light) 2005

I'm looking at a way of using the lino blocks to form etching plates, so the final prints record an absence of the original material; that is the etchings become the negative of the lino. The idea of repetition previously discussed will also be developed, with variations from one print to the other as well.

So, I am finding a way of transferring my lino block images to an etching plate. (The linos were themselves eaten away by acid - and so too will the etching plates be.)

The process:
Using the principle that oil based ink is acid resist, I relief inked a lino block, printed it onto butter paper in the wood press, used the butter paper image (still wet) and transferred it to a zinc plate via the etching press.

lino image transferred to metal

The metal plate, now with the oil based ink on it, was aquatinted, and placed in acid. So the positive lino image (now in red ink) remains untouched by the acid and therefore when intaglio printed will become a negative image.

I repeated the process with another lino plate, to get two etching plates. These were printed separately and together. I used different colours, printed them in different orders and printed them different ways up. 

These plates were printed over each other producing a layering of images and marks, ghost images of each other and negative images of the original lino plates.

plate on right,shown above, printed over brown plate on left

 plate on left shown above, printed over brown plate on  right

black on blue

Looking at Christopher Wool again, where are his marks from? Also, there is a similarity of colours in the layers of his silk screen. I'm interested in the idea of creating abstract shapes - removal of myself from the image or resultant marks, and the process I've adopted (lino through to etching) certainly creates an uncertainty of marks.

Christopher Wool Untitled 2007, silk screen

Week four - repetiton

 36 photographs and 12 diagrams

Mel Bochner at the Whitechapel Art Gallery - I find his reworking of his older pieces more interesting than his word paintings. 36 photographs and 12 diagrams photographs little wooden blocks in plan elevation and isometric, together with a corresponding diagram for each arrangement. It is a series of images,exploring repetition,  which when viewed together enable us to reconstruct the original sculpture. 

Four Smears: 1968/2010

Four smears is a process of photographing photographs, displayed in pairs of positive and negative, both in form and colour. "Photography is shown to be a process which self-produces new images rather than one which records exiting objects in from of the camera..." (Whitechapel blurb on Four Smears: 1968/2010)

Surface Dis/Tension (Recursive)

Also, Surface Dis/Tension (Recursive) 2012, where Bochner has rephotographed a wet and crumpled print investigating perspective, and hung it out to dry. He has printed it as both positive and negative again. The images have been laid on top of each other, but slightly out of kilter. 

I'm interested in his use of repetition and photography. Pushing the large lino pieces a little further, I decided to reprint them, on top of each other, but waiting for each layer to dry. Printed the first block four times to get four multiple coloured prints.

first block inked up in yellow

all four prints, first layer, in drying rack

second layer added 

I don't think the first layer was dry enough  as some of the yellow bled through. What a lengthy process!  All prints were numbered so the same order would be carried out each time. Note: registration method crucial here. (Last week's print wasn't registered properly - in particular because the lino ins't cut square). Paper was blotted between two sheets of damp tissue - tried without damping but result was no good.

third colour added

fourth/final colour

fourth/final colour with more extender