Printmaking

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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/180174

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Open Access
Abbie Downes: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Downes, Abbie, artist
The artist's statement: My work deals with how I perceive the world around me, as most art does for artists. When it comes to printmaking I find I represent the natural world around me using two different methods. As a travel junkie I am always longing for my next trip and studying the world I live in. A section of this body of work includes simple, bright designs that represent specific landscapes around the world from warm desert lands to harsh cool mountains. I also explore the style of maps and create my representation of countries around the world using fine lines and bold color blocks. Both styles depict how I view the natural world and the constant beauty that existed long before us.
Open Access
Abigail Sanford: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Sanford, Abigail, artist
The artist's statement: For my recent body of work I have been using photos and memories from my four month study abroad experience in Florence, Italy. I was influenced deeply by the work of the Renaissance masters as well as the architecture and general appreciation of art throughout the entire culture. This series is a visual re-creation of several unique and beautiful scenes from my trip. I've wanted to create a body of work that not only captures my time abroad, but also expresses the meaning and growth I experienced while away from home. My work explores the idea of how our memories can be changed by our emotions in order to know our true selves. Our emotional selves are such an important facet of our humanity. Being able to understand our feelings and manage them well is vital in being a healthy person. Suppressing and ignoring our feelings can be as unhealthy as mismanaging our emotions. Through personal reflection, I have come to understand and see the benefit of our emotional lives. We can choose to lean into that part of our existence which will create a richer and more meaningful experience of life. I have designed images of my personal sketches and photos by laser printing them onto acrylic plastic. Each color is overlapped or embedded into the design to exude a mood or emotion associated with each image. This comparison shows how memories can lose detail over time and the memories associated with rich emotions fade less. My goal is for the viewer to be able to identify with the changes in their own memory about an experience and reflect on how their emotions influence that memory. Through this series, I would encourage the audience to get in touch with their emotions, the color of life, and explore the impact that feelings can have as they experience all of what it means to be human.
Open Access
Alexandra Lake: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Lake, Alexandra, artist
The artist's statement: I am inspired by natural forms that possess an indefinable attraction. I only pursue the exploration of a structure if I cannot pin down exactly what is appealing about it and, therefore, feel obligated to give it a sense of autonomy in my production of it. My general sense of isolation and vulnerability both for myself and the existence of other living things also influence what figures I am drawn towards. I treat my work as an investigation into the false sense of security that comes from our biological existence. I find that the contradiction of nests is a great platform to explore this fragility. While proposing safety and comfort, nests are themselves delicate structures that provide no assured protection. Lately, I have been extending this metaphor to bodies. In my work, life forms become nested 'selves'; perpetuating their existence by relying on their biological structures to let them continue. These forms embody the anxious empathy I find when realizing that our greatest bond to our surroundings is our shared quality of impermanence. The process of printmaking allows me to explore my interests through repetition and layers. Without personally understanding their motivations, I work with images through different compositions and additions of printed layers until I believe that they are represented authentically. Through the intentional use of different printmaking techniques, I maintain some control over the appearance of my forms. However, I enjoy exploiting the unpredictable nature of some techniques as well as the 'black box' nature of the press to allow the forms to emerge with a life of their own.
Open Access
Amanda Thomas: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Thomas, Amanda, artist
The artist's statement: My artwork is an attempt to find spiritual order in an ever chaotic and imperfect world. My work tends to focus on control and stability, however in more recent works I have learned to embrace the results of automatic and both unconscious and conscious drawing decisions. My body of work assimilates control and chance, and some pieces reflect both simultaneously. I create works focusing on organic animal forms, utilizing them as a vessel for my emotions and thought-processes, as well as placing spiritual emphasis on them. Humans often connect to animals in certain ways, reading particular emotions for different species, therefore creating spiritual outlets through those animals; I utilize this to my advantage in my works, forcing emotions out of them that could only be done by depicting certain animals. Concurrently, my work explores the relationships that humans have with not only the animals that I depict, but with other human beings. The void of emotion that has become ever present in human interactions intrigue me, particularly my own lack of emotion towards others. I am interested in sharing imagery that I feel strongly connected to in order to record viewer reactions, so that I can experience the full range of emotional connection and witness it in others. Through these drawings, I feel closer to my audience and I hope that they feel close to me.
Open Access
Anthony Hood: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Hood, Anthony, artist
The artist's statement: In coming to Colorado State University, I discovered myself as an artist through the Printmaking concentration. Through this concentration, I was allowed to establish my work in a contemporary context. I feel this concentration has given me confidence in having a place in the arts, giving me a substantial and broad starting point. I made a series of experimental works which might not have a proper place in the arts and other work that will be easily enough to match into a typical style or process. Out of everything I have done, I can say, I didn't quite know where or what I was doing a majority of the time but I did know I had deadlines and ambition to see them out. My work as a visual artist, specifically in Printmaking, is to entertain the private or public eye. I have always been interested in bringing people of the community a minute impact of enjoyable creativity. It doesn't have to be enjoyed for extended amounts of time because I wouldn't be obsessive about it. I try to arrive at my work with a positivity attitude of direct intent, ambition to finish my goals, and continuing the wheel instead of reinventing it. These three points are how my work plays into the modern contemporary art because it's been the most consistent means of making art during my undergraduate degree. My direct involvement with the contemporary arts is my passion of continuing my concentration in a means of cross mixing media to find what isn't there or obvious apparently. I state this for reasons such as my work dealing in experimentation outside the general elements of printmaking. I use outside resources to come to a finished print, and don't stick to what is known. I have had made myself diverge from the normal mark making techniques and imagine a composition that uses both formal and experimental aspects. Typically, my work is out in left field, they seem to come at random, and don't maintain seriousness. They are whimsical and slightly kitch-y pieces derived from the idea of showing something bizarre or out of place. They create a reaction of bewilderment, followed by a moment of childish amusement. The works are meant to brighten up, or make a brief feeling of enjoyment. My work isn't meant to be in your face or potent but a means of striking small bits of emotion.
Open Access
Ashe Mardinly: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Mardinly, Ashe, artist
The artist's statement: I've always found interest in invoking responses from people. As a child this is usually accomplished by making a mess, and smiling cheekily at my parents as I did so. However art allows for a much more refined process of invoking reaction out of a viewer. This can be done a number of ways; my method of choice is through the abject. Abjection can be loosely defined as a significant horror or discomfort one feels when presented with something that acknowledges the mortality of life, of the body, or of one's self. Comfortable or not, there is a sort of power associated with the notion that at any given time, at any given place, one's mortality can be challenged. Through representational form, process-based abstraction, and direct use of language, I strive to create a point of view that encourages viewers to give thought to the mortality of life. Within this I hope not to cultivate fear of the vulnerabilities faced in life, but to engage the inescapable truth of mortality with confidence.
Open Access
Austin Armstrong: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Armstrong, Austin, artist
The artist's statement: My work uses visual forms to explore the interplay my personal origins, various religions perspectives, and the way in which we interact with our world. I investigate these concepts by reflecting upon my own origins, both thorough ancestral and spiritual lenses. My imagery is largely drawn from of my personal history, instances of family illness, and archetypes of religious iconography. These tools give way to a wide array of interpretation, while also letting the viewer a glimpse into the concrete and personal space that I create from. A person's beliefs are shaped by the world view that they inherit, as well as the intentions they take in addressing all given situations. This work is a visual symptom, produced by my intentional pursuit of truth amongst my personal beliefs and practices.
Open Access
Benjamin Morrison: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Morrison, Benjamin, artist
The artist's statement: In this collection of works I am exploring an idea of a kind of role reversal between the mind and the body. In the world we live in there is a priority in the physical. The mental processes of an individual has a clear influence on the physical actions that they employ but does not seem to have a direct influence on the world in the way that the physical does. In these works I have created a reality where the mind does have this direct influence on the physical. The physical form of these characters is entirely controlled by the mental state that is most prominent in the actor's system of beliefs.
Open Access
Brian Raftery: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Raftery, Brian, artist
The artist's statement: My work as a printmaker is centered around my fascination with the overlaps between the digital and analog world. Many printmaking processes that I explore within my practice have allowed for these overlaps to exist. The processes that have enthralled me the most have been cyanotype and laser-engraved woodblock/stone. These processes both allow the artist to print digital imagery at high resolution, and this can be combined with other processes to create interesting results.There is a parallel between these processes and the content within my work: a focus on the relationship between the digital and the non-digital. Technology is something that I grew up with in a way that the generations that came before me didn't. My relationship with this technology has shaped me in very complex ways, and analyzing this connection has inspired me to create work that references nostalgic imagery that many people from my generation grew up with. My process involves the digital manipulation of this imagery that I am able to deconstruct even more through post-digital processes (like cyanotype and laser-engraved wood or stone).Combining the many printmaking processes that I have learned thus far together is a very advanced skill that I spent a long time mastering most recently in order to take my work to the next level. This process makes me question my own relationship with technology, which I have even taken into practice as a Graphic Designer. Overall, my printmaking practice has pushed me to think outside the box when I am creating any artwork, regardless of whether the work is for a professional setting, or it is just a passion project.
Open Access
Cameron Douglas: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Douglas, Cameron, artist
The artist's statement: The origin of this series is built upon the double standard society has created surrounding one's expression of anger. Men are often allowed and in some cases encouraged, to convey verbal and physical anger openly, while women are expected to suppress or express anger in a more socially acceptable manner. The double standard of expression not only perpetuates a gender stereotype but discourages women from expressing their authentic feelings of self. Women who are innately assertive and direct are commonly feared, whereas their counterparts who exude the same behavior are deemed as inspirational. This marginalized perspective has created an environment at which a man's true expression of self is praised at the demise of a woman.This semantic double standard has created a deeply rooted feeling of generational grief. Regardless of status, race, and age all women, including myself, have endured the pain of being stereotyped solely based upon what resides underneath our clothes. Visually expressing rage is by no means a nuanced idea, however medias' capitalization of portraying a woman with emotions as "hysterical" has created a market saturated with inaccurate and pathetic depiction of "feminine rage". I was fortunate to be raised by a woman who valued honesty, authenticity and provided guidance to becoming a strong independent woman. As a woman leading a life of honesty and authenticity labeled me as a "scary bitch". Thankfully my mother has taught me to not keel over at the stereotypes that have been instilled upon me. Rather respond with a smile and a "flock of these"; referring to the act of twirling fingers followed by two middle fingers. As a woman who is well versed in being a bitch, I am passionate about creating a body of work which juxtaposes the media's diluted depiction of "feminine rage". Blending the world of performance and print is intended to symbolize the repetition of the gender discrimination seen throughout history. The representation of authentic expression intends to break down the door which has withheld feminine rage from society for years. Within this body of work I strive to inspire other women, like myself, to embrace their authentic selves while attempting to palliate the generational pain we as women have experienced for centuries.
Open Access
Carolyn Stern: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Stern, Carolyn, artist
The artist's statement: As an artist viewing the world, I am intrigued by places I have not explored. As a kid and even now, I am always curious about what is beyond the hill in front of me and then what is beyond that. I will look out on a view and wish to be on the next hill over so I can see what the world is like from over there. I recognize this tendency as an insatiable craving to know and to see it all. Unfamiliar landscapes carry a sense of peace and mystery that I am attracted to and interested in encapsulating. Even though I know humans have traversed over virtually the entire world and no landscape remains unobstructed from humanity's influence, there is still a sense of intrigue surrounding a landscape that appears seemingly free of development. Naturally occurring formations and growth create a visually stimulating world that is complex, yet harmonious. These forms, as well as the feelings evoked upon experiencing nature, have inspired my current body of paintings. Within my work, the visual language used translates the landscape from realistic to the daydream world of color, brushstroke, and texture that encourages the viewer's own internal investigations of place and the desire of the unknown.
Open Access
Duy Nguyen: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Nguyen, Duy, artist
The artist's statement: Traditional printmaking provided a means for me to explore and implement graphic design orchestrations in a way that marries the digital to the physical and intent to content. Each tangible print serves as a documentation of my design pursuits through deliberate planning and intentional organization of colors, shapes, textures, and negative space. First and foremost, I aim to initiate a cohesive graphic experience for the viewer, which through its simplicity, is aesthetically engaging, harmonious, and balanced as a formalized composition.
Open Access
Elisabeth Ortiz: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Ortiz, Elisabeth, artist
The artist's statement: Textural Printing -- Textural mark making has become a foundation for my artwork and through multiple processes I have begun to explore the possibilities available. Initially I make textural marks on my plate surface whether it is zinc or wood. I allow the surface of each media to guide my vision for a complex or simple texture. With zinc I have been able to explore a rollercoaster of possibilities for complex marks and textures. I use acid baths to etch my plate to various depths with and without complete control, depending on the acidity from day to day or plate to plate. With this initial process I am able to create a plate that is structurally changed from a smooth surface to a more geographical feel of deep crevices, lines, and openings. The tactile quality of my plates is what provokes my artistic path and guides my printing process. Each plate creates its own unique structure and I create a unique color palette that compliments the textures. Content in the structure and color palette I use the process of viscosity to create a layered color and textural effect in one print. The process of viscosity has assisted in the exploration of my artwork and it continues to hold my interest. I have found a path that I can pursue and explore for years. The complexity of viscosity intrigues my knowledge of process and artistic conception. Before viscosity I began to explore the idea of texture and surface with wood. Although there is more personal control over each mark made, I allow the grain of the wood and the tools to guide my hand to create unique marks and cuts. With wood the complexity of marks is not initially seen in each print but a foundation of textural surface is left on the wood plate. This texture invokes my decision in the marks made after each other as well as the colors I use to accentuate each unique surface. Although my woodcuts are more of a simplistic venue for my artwork they are complex in the multi-plate layering. I choose to print multiple plates that complement each other's marks and the colors I create for each layer are mixed to invoke a distinctive conceptual feel. Through each surface I am able to manipulate my prints to achieve a tactile state that invokes my artistic process. Although I focus on viscosity and woodcut, I am not limited to the processes at my fingertips, I utilize the fine lines of etching and engraving as well and the visual textures of soft-ground and sugarlift. My prints are continuously exploring the textural marks that are possible. As an artist I have found a new appreciation for texture and its idiosyncratic potential through printmaking. With this new venue to create conceptual art that represents myself as an artist I hope to explore its possibilities though other media forms.
Open Access
Emily Gayle: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Gayle, Emily, artist
The artist's statement: Naturalistic expressionism evolved from regional and experiential processes is illustrated in my printmaking developments. Each print considers material, method, concept, and visual design to create impressionable outcomes. Materials I employ may include ash or essential oils sourced from the state of Colorado. Lithographs assembled with the entire stone enhance the presence of the human connection to the earth. Visual designs I choose are dependent on the concept demonstrated and my recognized emotional state. Compositions often interpret the Poudre Canyon to recreate landscapes that have imprinted on me. Experiences I select translate through gestural abstract marks. Reproducing a moment in time repeatedly with printmaking allows me to share this intimate experience with others and honor the existence of patterns in the world. My documentations holistically explore my identity as an artist in relation to my vast environment.
Open Access
Emily Roan: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Roan, Emily, artist
The artist's statement: From the smallest manifestation of material to the largest, I find no separation. The space between is alive and intelligent. Space is the womb for ideas to collect and take form. Intelligence guides each unique fractal in a sublime dance. This dance is what I investigate in my work. Through pattern, chaos and various paradoxes I find in nature, I create organic drawings that communicate my fluid state of mind. My work reiterates the same thought in varying ways, that unity is reality. I intend to communicate the relationship between my perceptions (emotions) with my experience. The part of my mind that is quite and intuitive essentially IS the experience. These qualities or dualities that reside in my mind are reflections of the nature that I observe. The intuitive characteristic in my mind being space and the emotive response or perception I embody being form. In my drawings I blur this line of separation between the observer and the observed, because deep in my mind resides the awareness that they actually create each other. Through my process of drawing I recreate this connection of non-duality. I transform with the piece I am creating. I no longer am a separate entity. I tune into what it needs to grow and respond genuinely. Like a feed-back loop, or an infinity symbol, we exchange information, while simultaneously transforming each other. I experiment with materials in order to change their original state so I can create texture and depth and sublimity. Salt, ink, water, acrylics, and glue on water resistant surfaces have the tendency to be unpredictable, which nurtures the feedback loop I try to create with my work. Because of this process I have developed, each piece has its own connection with me, as if they are artifacts of a particular present moment. I hope to create a space of stillness with a contradicting intention of activity for the viewer, putting them in a paradoxical situation I often find myself in naturally. I want to evoke a subtlety of perception, a quietness that creates a deep presence. I hope my audience connects my work to organic forms they may have experienced before while they experience them in a new and unpredictable way. My work has an underlying and subconscious intention as well. That intention comes from an inner awareness that each one of us contains the power and potential to improve humanity and humanities connection to Earth's ecosystem. Our power comes from our connection to everything through the rippling of energy thought and feeling. My mission is to inspire the individual to embody the mindset of the dreamer, the awakened, and the innovator through my own organic symbolic language that can be interpreted universally as well as personally.
Open Access
Erica Quihuiz: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Quihuiz, Erica, artist
The artist's statement: I use process as an exercise in tranquility, humor as an exercise in empathy, and risk as an exercise in transformation. I embrace contemporary forms of print media as an effective form of self-expression, and also hold a deep respect for the rich historical tradition of printmaking as a trade and a craft. I encourage shifts in technology as an allegory to examine our ever-fluctuating environment alongside what it means to be a female. I am inspired by contemporary feminist writings and specifically respond directly to the ever-present tendrils of the Chthulucene. As an antidote to pure cynicism, I like to play with unconventional materials such as pigments extracted from tea or fresh fruits and imagine that I am resourcefully gathering vital supplies in preparation for a meaningful psychological battle against an ominous ecological future.
Open Access
Francis Fahnestock: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Fahnestock, Francis, artist
The artist's statement: My body of work focusses on creating visual relationships of shape and color. The interaction of shapes and the space around them is a primary focus of many of these works. This is to try to bring attention to the norm of a rectangular composition. The deeply etched lines and aggressive marks of the intaglio pieces embrace process and mark making that is unique to printmaking. The range of value and marks creates visual interest without depicting any particular image. The non-objective nature of these pieces is to emphasize the importance of the shapes and their composition rather than an objective representation. These pieces also embrace the printmaking process and try to allow randomness and chaos found in certain processes in both intaglio and lithography. This work reflects curiosity in process through mark, presentation, and repetition.
Open Access
Grace Morris: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Morris, Grace, artist
The artist's statement: Preservation and more specifically the act of keeping an event or structure in existence is the driving force behind my research and creativity. I create visual representations of specific historical events and architectural sites through various printmaking techniques. Recently, the focus of my art pieces has been on decaying structures and historical events resulting in destruction. I am captivated by the structure of architecture, but knowing the historical significance of a structure along with its degradation furthers my motivation to preserve it through art. I research sites and occurrences in the United States, with a more recent, narrow focus on Colorado. I utilize a combination of linear marks with gestural, painterly marks to depict recognizable architectural structures amidst chaos and disorder. Structures that are visually unsafe and unstable influences my work and challenges the perception of permanence and indestructibility. When portraying a building that is decaying and being reclaimed by nature, I research to find the reason why humans abandoned the structure. The condition of the building provides further context to the changes in society and the issues humans were facing at the time of abandonment. For example, changes in the economy such as depressions or shifts in modes of production have resulted in the abandonment of buildings that no longer serve a purpose in society. If the building was destroyed by a natural disaster or human violence, I research to learn the historical event behind the deconstruction. These pieces are based on primary sources such as photographs, personal accounts or newspaper articles to best interpret the event. This work of damaged structures represents and symbolizes human unrest, inaction with natural disasters or societal anger and violence that are seen multiple times throughout history.
Open Access
Hannah Chapman: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Chapman, Hannah, artist
The artist's statement: Cyanotype is an alternative process in which rays from the sun expose a layer of photosensitive material on paper or fabric. The marks you see in my cyanotypes are a negative representation of drawings on a transparency. Other processes, like lithography and intaglio, are methods in which an image is etched into the surface of a stone or a metal plate from which multiple impressions can be pulled with the help of ink. Cyanotype and lithography lend themselves to experimental practices in which I am always searching to further immerse my mind. I draw using methods of the automatic and subconscious, as my marks are formed by nothing but instinctual movements and responses to the marks as they come. I do not think about what I draw until I draw it. This way I am tapping into mechanical variations that are programmed into me. The large scale allows me to fall into the act of drawing and presents an inviting quality to the viewer. All of my marks are asking the viewer to witness them. Lack of control and choice are the underlying elements of my work. Chaos is my ultimate inspiration. I did not choose to be me and yet, in all this chaos, I am here. I am here at this moment because of my family (and wonders of the universe). This art is my gratitude. With each piece, my experience and memory expand and my work grows as a celebration of them and the self. The sun burns the spaces surrounding marks and memories. The stone absorbs these marks. What you see are indirect translations of my celebration. My work is a vessel for shadows to exist in the absence of light and space.
Open Access
Ian Rhodes: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Rhodes, Ian, artist
The artist's statement: My print work has focused on a mixing articles of the past. I find and rearrange old photos digitally which I then use to create prints. This sequence of processes creates images that have a mixed up context, they contain unrelated images from the past filtered through distortions of the printmaking techniques and digital manipulation. I try to create works that hint at narrative but fall apart when one is pinned on them, therefore making any narrative open ended.