Portfolio 3
In my final portfolio, I culminate my semester with work that is representative both of the gains I have made in the printmaking medium and the semester as a whole. Once again, I present self-portraits, but these are without a companion or figure on my side. I am the lone figure in the prints, which draw their inspiration from students’ work in our class and renowned printmakers.
Although these prints stay true to the simplicity that I have always employed, the process was far more engaged. I return to a smaller sized figure on a white field, printing six small bands across the paper and overlaying them with an outlined drawing of my face. The process was longer because it required six individual layers for each color in a far more additive process than my previous works. The repetition of the same figure multiple times and in different editions draws its inspiration from Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych.
The major shift in this body of work deals with the shifting of the artist’s gaze. Originally meant to be a collection of works that would present prints with many different images and printed shapes within my face to show the varied ways I identify myself, I decided to repeat the images to make a larger presentation that has a meditative quality. Rather than looking outwardly to other people in my life as a source of inspiration. Answering the question of identity requires looking within, and this collection serves as the answer to that question.
Portfolio 2
The portraits in my second portfolio build on the images and themes in the first. The prints are derived from photographs–this time depicting myself and with my two closest friends in separate works. Although they are still self-portraits in the same style as the previous collection, there is a greater dynamism and interplay between these two works.
I stay true to simplicity; the purchase of an additional screen speeds the process and allowed me to create larger, more detailed works that depict not only faces, but also poses and even some situational details. The colors are selected with greater intention and contrast between the two is much more stark– the warmth of the blazing red with a dark black detail in the first portrait is opposite to the deep green and golden detail in the second.
Altering the process to make the works larger, the inclusion of body language, and the decision to put the two prints at play with each other changes the body of work from its predecessor. I stay true to the theme of providing a simplified view into my personal life while expanding on the portrayal of the “others” but putting them at odds with each other. Rather than all prints working on their own, these two prints are far more dependent on each other and are not a mere collection of events in the past.
Portfolio 1
In this portfolio, I portraits derived from photographs of myself with friends taken on my smartphone. The photos are from moments I have shared with people at concerts, gallery openings, and celebrations. Some are from the most memorable adventures and experiences of my life, and all of them are “selfies.”
Simplicity is the main ingredient in every part of the printmaking process: I take most of the detail out of the photographs by tracing over the images, accentuating some features and ignoring others. These sketches yield 2 to 3 stencils which I print on top of each other to create a simplified selfie. In these four prints, I played with different color ideas– the relationship between warm and cool color, a complementary color scheme, and metallic and gradient effects.
The process yields an inversion of the self-portraits taken on my phone. Rich in detail, the photos are a few of thousands from the endless span of time that lies behind me–most of them get lost in my cell phone’s memory storage and are rarely looked at after they have been taken or uploaded to some social media outlet. Simplifying the photos to basic shape, linework, and color fragments and reduces the visual detail, but transforms the photograph from mundane pieces of data on a smartphone into ambiguous archives of special moments with an invaluable figures in my life. What the prints lack in context, they make up for in the ambiguity of the characters and the moment displayed, whose identities and circumstances are mystery.
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