Class: Lino and Woodcut reduction printing [2022]

Autumn 22/23, The Art Academy

Developing lino and woodcut printing - one reduction of each (3-4 layers). Then moving onto personal work and crit.

Lino + Woodcut Reduction

Personal Projects

Edge of Midnight

'The Edge of Midnight', is a 10 layer woodcut reduction print on Fabriano paper. 

The piece is a portrait of my burlesque persona Miss Mara May, a melancholy clown girl. The broader utilisation of Mara, through performance and art practice, aims to explore the question ‘what kind of fool am I?’, considering the Kierkegaardian proposition:

“that “becoming what one is” and evading despair and hollowness is not a matter of solitary introspection, but rather a matter of passionate commitment to a relation to something outside oneself.” 

With Mara, the tension between playing the fool (dwelling in despair, acting to the isolating confines of the ‘circus’) and the effort and reward of taking the actions of the person we believe ourselves to be, are usually considered through costume and performance. Painting and print enables the isolation of key moments in her journey. In this case, the rubicon of presenting her ‘self’ to the world, a leap that requires declowning as a necessity, rather than a choice.