These carborundum intaglios, printed by hand, are responses to living around Los Angeles with its maddening traffic and freeways, they reference African Mbuti textile patterns, are built on German-rooted art education, and express a fascination with Chinese brush painting. All but a few elements which you’ll find in LA.
This suite of prints, “Matrix LA”, has 12 rhythmic pieces echoing the pulse of Los Angeles, its flows and snags, its golden promises, and bleak frustrations. In its larger aspects, it stands for the continual tug-of-war in life and art between control and gesture, gridlock and freedom, boredom and creativity, death and life.
The word “matrix” is a derivative of the Sanskrit “mater”, (mother), meaning: 1. A point from where something new originates; 2. The womb; 3. The plate where the image resides is printed with ink.
It is, of course, also the root of the English “matter”, “material”, “maternity” etc.
Carborundum intaglio from multiple plates, chine collé, screen printing, foil. Edition of five. 28 inches x 18 inches, (71 cm x 48 cm).