See post below for the dates of the exhibition - opens tomorrow evening for 3 weekends
- new thoughts for The Antidote included a large new Punch and Judy woodcut (definitely domestic violence here) - and I got quite obsessed with Virtus Combusta when I saw it at the wonderful Mantegna Bellini at the NG exhibition before Christmas – Mantegna of course one of the first painter/printmakers so I have played with that in drypoint and monoprint and woodcut; it seems so much an image for our times….. the original is somewhat misogynistic – I have made the figures even more androgynous…
- new thoughts for The Antidote included a large new Punch and Judy woodcut (definitely domestic violence here) - and I got quite obsessed with Virtus Combusta when I saw it at the wonderful Mantegna Bellini at the NG exhibition before Christmas – Mantegna of course one of the first painter/printmakers so I have played with that in drypoint and monoprint and woodcut; it seems so much an image for our times….. the original is somewhat misogynistic – I have made the figures even more androgynous…
Humanity stumbles towards an abyss guided by Lust,
Folly and Deceit; Ignorance watches from a throne on a globe beside burning
laurels, served by Fate and Avarice. Hermes appears to try to
intervene….
The exhibition also seemed a good point to get down
to designing some playing cards – it will still be a partial set and in no way
conventional but I can return to it at times of stress... I have always wanted
to design cards – the shape and size is so appealing, nice and small to chip
away at in comparison with my large woodcuts...
Cards have always been
used in a variety of ways, gaming, patience, fortune telling and tarot cards,
leading to a range of expressions and metaphors - playing your cards right
etc
I
like the idea of an ever-changing deck of images that can be endlessly
rearranged, sparking off new ideas and narratives… I have been
printing my woodcuts on old newspapers from the last month as I feel it answers
the need for a patina of age, history and complexity which all the best old
cards have - part of their magic for tarot reading; it can also can include
topicality and satirical comment if you can decipher what is beneath my
printing... and even if you can’t it is still there; and ambiguity
mirrors the process of a ‘reading’ – why did I choose that image to print on?
(apart from its colour) - read my thoughts and add your own….Work in Progress!