Summary of my work so far:
Having taken delivery of a huge quantity of flooring lino, I have revisited
my initial etching process started way back last October. This time, the floor
itself is my plate - I am not copying images, copying cracks etc. Instead I am
directly marking, scratching, taping, wax dripping onto the floor and etching
with the same caustic soda and wall paper paste recipe as before. My
domestic theme and dialogue with process have become my prints, using domestic
materials to make the plates.
I am using Hosho Japanese paper for the prints, with the lino and paper sized
to be the maximum that will fit on the largest flat-bed printer in the
workshop. The registration is complex, and calculations are required for sizes
so the paper does not get stuck in the rollers. The pressure of the rollers has
had to be adjusted to get a balance between intensity of ink and prevention of
paper creasing.
In effect, there is a tension set up between the incompatibilities of
materials, pushing them all to their limits. The printer is designed for
intaglio, not relief printing, which is why there is a tendency for the paper
to crease; the Japanese paper is a rather beautiful expensive rarefied paper
made for delicate multi-block wood cuts, yet my plate is a mass produced modern
flooring material, as popular now as it was in the 1950's; and I am sloshing liquid
Bitumen and caustic soda over the plates, in contrast to the controlled and
precise methods used in cutting Japanese wood blocks.
The prints themselves, in black and white, (black ink on white paper), resemble
wood cuts, yet the scale and shape of the marks, both the jagged and the
gestural, would be impossible to achieve in wood. Hence there is a curiosity
about their making. There is a reference to 1950's abstract expressionists,
such as Franz Kline and Hans Hartung and indeed Kline’s use of scaling up
sections of drawings has been used in some of the prints. (See the sketch
book page of thumbnail images of the kitchen). They also echo the imagery
used in Russian Constructivist architecture (Tatlin’s Tower – Monument to the
Third International) and Constructivist agitprop art with their forceful diagonal
lines. By using a roll of paper, they reference banners, newspaper printing,
mass media, multiple copies, whilst interrogating the genre and technology of
the printmaking medium.
The images are made as a series of diptychs, working quickly on
two images at once, so there is both a sense of dynamism and a narrative
between the pairs. As a series they become filmic, alluding to landscapes or
views seen from within or from outside; trapped in a cage or looking into the enclosure.
The use of jagged cut tape together with layers of stamped on circular shapes
or gestural brush strokes, once etched obscure each other, with glimpses of
marks emerging ghost like from behind others and the overall prints being palimpsestic.
The black and white evokes light and shadow and the Japanese theme
is continued with a reference to the writing of the Japanese author Tanizaki's
"In Praise of Shadows" and his descriptions of the importance of
light and shadow in Japanese architecture.
The large scale of these images has meant I have had to move to a different
form and scale of mark making. No longer are they made up of small tiled squares
of lino, yet they still have an intimacy about them. The indeterminacy of acid
etching results in images that can be examined close up, yet they retain a
boldness when viewed from a distance. The deeply etched lino itself becomes
a sculpture, both when flat and when
rolled, transformed from its origins and providing a further meaning of the
work; a multivalency.
So, I am now working on perfecting the printing process, deciding on whether to
have thick black marks from the press, or softer marks using less pressure, or
even using hand burnishing with a barren, so they have more of a wood cut
quality. To achieve the darker prints, I am changing to oil based ink with
varying amounts of extender and drying retarder to prevent the plates drying
out before I have finished inking them. I have made six plates, each 950mm wide
(the paper width) by approximately 1 metre long (and may make more).
My work this year started with an investigation into craft,
process and transformation, together with its documentation and combined with
studies of the everyday, building, the domestic environment and areas usually
overlooked or, (in my work as an architect) covered up. This involvement with
domestic architecture and process have become my prints, the domestic materials
my plates, and now on a larger scale than previously, they almost become part
of the built environment themselves.
Below are a series of photos documenting the making of these prints:
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