"The Traveler and the Hare"

"The Traveler and the Hare" 

 

My exploration of printmaking combines relief cutting and printing on various materials to investigate themes of loss and acceptance. Intending to shed light on human experiences by representing the abstractness of the mind when faced with grief, and the process that it can take to accept a loss. I focused on this theme within my work and created a story inspired by my pet rabbit, Luna, who passed away at the beginning of this year. Using “The Traveler and the Hare” to explore the realm of creating a visual narration while channeling those emotions into my woodcut process. I often cut areas of my MDF wood blocks freehanded without a reference and relied solely on fragments of my memory. Which allowed me to express how I was feeling in that moment freely and create imagery that held that meaning and velocity of that emotion. Where I began to focus on shapes, tonal variation, and line without the limitation of my drawing. To attain the feeling of acceptance while printing on various materials.I took inspiration from skilled printmakers such as Steve Prince and Caledonia Curry, who commonly focus on human experiences through visual storytelling, and channel that emotion and velocity with relief cutting. Steve Prince, for example, shares his work to send a message of hope and renewal to the global community, while creating large-scale and highly detailed imagery. Looking at his work, I loved that his relief cuts had this visual narrative aesthetic, which helped me find direction for how I wanted to approach my theme. Caledonia Curry focuses on human experience, sharing ties between trauma and addiction within her most recent projects. Looking at some of her work, she had this experimental quality with printing on objects that also gave me some ideas for how I wanted to print on fabric and create objects out of them.Leading to my concept of how I wanted my work to be presented through visually creating a surreal and dream-like quality to focus on the idea of rebirth. Aiming to share that feeling, as if you were glimpsing into a different reality that we typically do not see. To create a story showing Luna’s journey into the afterlife, and share how it felt to process her loss as the traveler. To serve as a message to the viewer that even through the loss of a loved one, a child, a stranger, or even a pet. Their journey to the next chapter can be a beautiful process, even if we can’t see it. We create those dreams, memories, a story, an object in memorialization, or even relief prints. No matter our process to accept those who have gone, we continue our walks of life, honor them, and keep them close. With this message in mind, I invite you to come into my space and look at every detail. Some elements are hidden unless you examine things very closely.