I have an experimental approach to making art, working with an idea & exploring it through processes and media, often working and reworking images, not knowing quite what the outcome will be. Whilst working on the small X prints I talked about in my previous blog entry, I acquired a large piece of board which someone had abandoned after pasting on a large patch of carborundum grit. This appealed to my sense of traces left behind.
I added two large brush-stroke crosses in glue & grit and initially printed it un-inked with small inked plates laid on top, creating a deeply texture blind embossing much of which is hardly noticeable without an oblique light. As I work into and onto the board between each printing, the original images gradually deteriorate, becoming feint traces of what they once were. It feels as though a history is building up in the plate, through both deliberately made marks and indentations left accidentally by the small plates. As marks are eroded they become part of something new, something different that, in turn, becomes part of a cycle of growth and decay.