No Exit, relief (from laser-cut plate)
When I first began working at Highpoint, the rule I set for myself was to avoid anything that felt conservative. After four years in an undergraduate program that was centered on traditional figurative painting and drawing, I was ready for a change. Underlying this change was a desire to replace the primacy of skilled mark making and virtuosity that occupies the attention of many artists with a more process-driven approach. My best work has a sense of being built or engineered, so naturally I have become invested in designing things digitally using a combination of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
Most recently I have been using a laser engraver to create digitally designed plates for relief printing. In the piece “No Exit“, I have also used a laser-cut Mylar film to mask out elements of certain layers. Making multiple impressions of plates and re-purposing elements from other prints is an easy way to generate unique imagery and I often find new uses for materials which were originally conceived with a different intent in mind.
There are certain visual motifs that I am drawn to, such as hewn off aspects of the built environment, grids and cages, colorful gradation and blocky geometric forms. I am trying to establish a parallel between my imagery and what I feel is the cerebral and mechanical (but also playful) nature of the printing press.
