Series 3: The Printmaker’s Plane

Selected works on paper are original and one of a kind. To view more information click on a thumbnail image. For pricing or to see more work please inquire via contact page.

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The printmaker’s plane series is derived from a daily walking ritual in New York City. It became a tree of interest many years ago that drove me to research its history. Unlike most species of trees, the London plane was created by an English botanist in the 17th century who merged an American sycamore and an Occidental plane tree. I call the London Plane tree the Printmaker’s Plane Tree because of its layered bark. Just as a printmaker layers content, shape, and color upon paper, the bark of the London Plane tree shows its layers of skin like a history of wear, tear, and renewal. Both the cultivated tree and the printmaker’s artistic works are interventions and fabrications of nature itself with a long history. Both botany and art as a practice, calls into thought the idea of creation, adaptation, nature (human and non-human), and intervention itself. Both practices have changed and evolved over time. From experience, to drawings, to creating stencils formed the concept of this piece and the whole series. The technique used in this work required selecting and mixing colors, inking the stencils, and layering them on paper through a series of push and pulls with the press. I reused the stencil pieces by inking them on both sides, sometimes applying more color, sometimes removing color, and other times letting the ghosts of color layer in between other colors. The achieved result shows the interaction of shape and color in a layered manner like the tree itself. I completed fifteen 26” (w) x 38” (h) pieces based on the London plane pattern. There is more to research and explore with this project.

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