Black and White Woodcuts
My black and white woodblock prints fuse signage, symbols and written forms. The prints, ranging in size from 2” x 4” to 30” x 44”, utilize a self-designed language to deconstruct words, and fuse many of my diverse artistic and intellectual interests together. In order to emulate and emphasize the objects of my research, my images are printed on unique handmade papers, accentuating age, tactile qualities, embodying a sense of history, time, and indecipherability. Through the use of my unique glyphs/text and pictograms, these prints investigate different structural divisions and matrices that define my compositional space, showing a synthesis of form, and separating them from their literal meanings. Through spatial divisions indicating time, these prints reveal a literal and compositional story with graphic marks, geometric forms, and abstract symbols, allying them with symbolic, coded “picture-writing”.
Using abstracted and undecipherable texts as a visual language, reminiscent of familiar letterforms, signs and patterns found within in our surroundings, I attempt to create visual poetic tapestries. Layering, as it is applied in visual, physical and technological ways, plays a pivotal role in my creative process, forming the basis for the integration of image and text. It is through layering, that information is carefully revealed, engaging viewers to decode what is presented to them.
My black and white woodcuts accentuate the use of “language” displayed on different surfaces, emphasizing the image as a fine art print, artifact and object. I am able to present my prints in both a formal and an object-oriented manner through my choice of printing surfaces including traditional Western printmaking papers, different types of Japanese rice papers, and Lokta paper from Nepal. Overtime, my black and white woodcut prints have evolved from images of tree branching patterns that emphasized the design and structure of nature’s patterns, architecture, and physical force to images fusing signage, symbols, and written forms together.
