Artist's Statement : Visual Concerns and Techniques
Monotype is a process in which ink is applied to a plate and the plate applied to the paper or canvas, thereby transferring the ink. I perform these steps by hand, using no press, as each of my pieces is a unique work. I generally overprint several layers, using thin glazes to achieve a luminous quality and vein-like textured surface. I then work into the print with crayon, ink, pencil, paint or other media. I often work in series, producing multiple monotype images with varying colors on individual works, and on different works in the series.
Trained originally as a painter, I have always been primarily concerned with color and the visual and spiritual rhythms of color as the expression of the movement within form, the life under the "skin" of the image. There is something wonderful about the monotype process -- pressing the entire image, or a large part of it, at once. It goes beyond and also complements the pleasure I find in the precision and focus of the brush, pencil or crayon. I also feel that, while image and pictorialism remain important to me, the use of the monotype process -- as opposed to direct application by brush -- "frees" the color to some extent from the edges of form. Finally, with monotype you're closer to the actual artwork itself -- there's nothing between you and it. I feel like I'm dancing around the plate.
About the Work Home
Trained originally as a painter, I have always been primarily concerned with color and the visual and spiritual rhythms of color as the expression of the movement within form, the life under the "skin" of the image. There is something wonderful about the monotype process -- pressing the entire image, or a large part of it, at once. It goes beyond and also complements the pleasure I find in the precision and focus of the brush, pencil or crayon. I also feel that, while image and pictorialism remain important to me, the use of the monotype process -- as opposed to direct application by brush -- "frees" the color to some extent from the edges of form. Finally, with monotype you're closer to the actual artwork itself -- there's nothing between you and it. I feel like I'm dancing around the plate.
About the Work Home