Tuesday, January 23, 2007

James in color

since it was designed as a black and white wood cut originally it has a "colorized" effect to it. I enjoy the difference between design problems in black and white versus color. What really works for me is the awkwardness that exists between these two approaches when they are smashed together. I see it a lot in the advertising and design world (tons of overlap in those two worlds), and I suspect it's because our ability to reproduce "natural" colors has become so exceptionally easy and many people have great affinity for either older technology or a more rough aethetic. Just look at the continuing popularity of Andy Warhol's screen prints. Their beauty is in their appearance of awkwardness, and the implication that the artist only cared just enough to slap them togehter (though I strongly suspect Andy knew what he was doing more than he cared to talk about)




This one is my favorite of the four. No particular reason other than I like the colors.

I only made four because I was seeing how much I could get away with, adding multiple plates to the process, without betting too technical. I feel that the more reliable I get with color matching, and registration, the closer I get to becoming a human "production machine". This form of printmaking lends itself to (and was invented to) make production runs of images that look the same. But, I enjoy playing with the space between one-of-a-kind image making, and mass-produced replication.

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