I realise I have not reflected a great deal on my actual work in the studio over the last week or so. My focus on here has certainly been upon reviewing the exhibitions I visited in London. Worry not, there has been plenty of activity in the studio which I shall be discussing on here very, very soon.
Firstly, I must finish off my documentation of my London visit by revealing my thoughts regarding the David Hockney print exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Given my love of working with print, I felt it would be incredibly beneficial to see some Hockney prints to be able to study the approach this artist takes towards creating work in this way, specifically the way he executes etchings which is incredibly relevant to my current work.
I have always felt the need to include a high level of detail and contrast within my etchings, replicating the original image to my best ability. On viewing Hockney’s etchings, I began to consider the various ways an etching can be created effectively without it becoming too illustrative, something which I think is a bit of an issue for me.
In such prints as ‘Celia’ and ‘In Despair’ Hockney demonstrates a more understated approach to the etching process. The surroundings remain simple and unambiguous whilst only slightly more detail is used to emphasize the character of the figures within.
Detail is something which is very rarely missing from my work, I guess I struggle with simplifying anything too much in the worry that it won’t reflect what I want it to. Especially with etchings I think I have the tendency to cram as much detail in as possible to encompass the whole area of the print. I’m not sure my approach to etching will change at this particular point in my project as my aim is to give a true representation of my family photographs within the typical 6×4 format. As I continue further with my etching plates I feel I am developing in regards to my mark making and knowing how best to achieve a certain effect in relation to the nature of the image.
What Hockney’s exhibition did make me realise was the variation of visual effects which can be produced from print-making techniques. Printing for me is quite often black and white and it would be interesting to inject more colour into my work through means of perhaps screenprinting, colourgraphs and colour monoprinting.
Since the start of my 22 etching series I have been predominantly thinking about other series’ I can produce. What I shouldn’t rule out, however, is perhaps making different types of prints from just one image and reflecting upon which techniques work best. It is this point which empasizes my need to think in greater depth about the aesthetic outcome of a work and how it represents both the original image I am working from and my intentions of what I am trying to communicate.
