I felt it would be a
good plan to get to the Herbert at opening time to avoid the worst of
Storm Dennis. Plenty of other people had the same idea, too. So if
determination is a sign of quality, we're in for a good show.
Today is also HAP Grieshaber's 111th birthday, so I'm taking that as a good
omen for printmakers.
These are the pieces
I put in for selection.
The first is a woodcut called
Sounding – The Bells. It will be (I hope) the first in a series
sounding the depths of my life. It should add up to an unreliable
autobiography, as I drop a weighted line into the swirling ocean of
my past, and make images based upon what I hit. Things of great
importance and none. Things that affected me directly, or only
tangentially.
Anyway, when I moved
to Coventry in 1975 I was struck by how the city wore its damage like
a badge, saying, "Remember, this is what war does.” We have so many
swaggering, bellicose leaders these days, it is a message worth
repeating. I think the choice of wood adds to the violence of the image. I also didn't let the ink fully dry between layers, so the colours fight with each other, too.
This second one is
a linocut based on a number of drawings I made while sitting in a hospital
waiting room. I'd never tried drawing people in public before, and I
was struck by how preoccupied everyone was with their books, papers
and devices. Trying to forget where they were.
I called it
Purgatory because of the waiting to know if the news is good, or bad.
And also acknowledging the inferno of the other print.
Just have to wait
now to see if either gets in. My own little purgatory.
No comments:
Post a Comment