The Space Between Two Women
The body of work created explored concepts of personal identity, race, and gender and how those ideas relate to an alter ego and the idea of terra nullius (no man’s land). As I uncovered the image beneath the wood, I found two women pinned up like dolls behind pretty masks. One lets others climb up higher over her and endures the nails they put in her back. Another has given so much of herself there is a hole where her core used to be. Between the two lie a beautifully haunting space where these masked women try to make sense of themselves and their role in the world. Through these more abstract concepts, I explored multi-block-multi-color prints, laser engraved prints, and reduction wood-block prints. The pieces generated throughout this semester were definitely a strenuous labor of love, both for its ambitious scale, number, and color choices. Though veering off from my initial sketches and ideation, this work became merely a product of all that I have learned throughout this piece and the many trial and errors of registration, color mixing, color layering, and exploring more nuances of larger scale wood block printing.
Ideation
Carving
Left and Right: Ink drawing prepped for transfer onto woodblock
Left and Middle: Digital Color Sketches
Above: Black and White bitmap image for laser engraving
The approach I took in ideation was more explorative and generative. I experimented with using various textures and color palettes.
Above: Key Blocks Carved
First Ink Layers + Proofs
After finishing the key blocks, test prints were done to evaluate line quality and weights and testing out colors. The laser engraved landscape key block was also test printed and further carving with an electric dremel was done for the final piece. Also depicted below include the first color layer for the middle four landscape blocks. Subsequent layering of colors, shapes using stencils to block out the ink were done before the final key block with the image of the mountains.
