The inspiration for this series of four prints came from the German War Cemetery at Langemark and the sculptures of four faceless soldiers who stand vigil on the edge of the plot looking in. I each of my final prints I have tried to capture a different aspect of the original place.
In print One I tried to capture the sense of longing for home that the dead will never see again and the restlessness of spirit this caused in me.
In print Two I wanted to explore the decorative possibilities of the image. Even sculptures at cemeteries have decorative possibilities.
In print Three I wanted to show the hewn and crafted quality of the sculptures and how the act of their creation provides a continuity with the past.
In print Four I have hinted at the dark side of a small plot of land in Belgium, containing the bodies of 40,000 men and the sinister 'faceless' quality of the sculptures.
I feel my most successful print is Print Three because it largely achieves the objectives I set out with albeit via a less successful prior series of prints. I truly love the fact that you can see how I have stuck two blocks of wood together to make one block that isn't quite square and doesn't quite fit the A3 box it has been put in. I feel a bit like that myself sometimes. I like the way the grain goes in a different direction for each half of the block and the way the surface of the wood has torn where I have gouged accross the grain. I sometimes think there's a craftsman in me trying to get out rather than an artist, perhaps that's why I have been drawn to printing which in some ways is a bit of both.
Apart from the quality of carving in Print Three it is quite a clean print with some good technique used to effect. The different printing processes ie. momoprinting with stencils and wood cut relief compliment each other so where there is texture from the mono printing there is solid colour from the relief print which creates a satisfactory balance between lose and solid.
The colour scheme works but could be more adventurous as I have used these sorts of colours in other works.
I am least happy with Print Two because I have only partially resolved the dilema between texture and form that I wanted to get nearer to solving at the outset. Of the three versions of this print I like the one above best because it has a colour scheme that is at once bright but seems to reflect the vigourous gestural mark making and backdrawing, It is a vigourous print, perhaps at odds with the sombre mood of the original setting which may be another reason why I like it the least.
Print One is the most interesting and unexpected with it's simple white on black statement. I don't think I could've taken this any further in any direction. I like the battered and weathered look of the printing contained in the outline of the figures which was something I strived for at the outset. I like battered, worn, weathered things in general; again they speak of the passage of time and provide a link with the past. I find this continuity reassuring.br />
I'm afraid to confess that print Four was like going through the motions a bit. I could've been more adventurous with colour and the chine colle and the collagraph but I stuck to the things I knew would work, mainly because I am running out of time to get this course assessed in the November assessment and thereby get back on track.
Looking at the series of prints as a whole I think they hang together as a body of work mainly because the underlying design is so simple. Also they are all A3 which helps. Even in Print Four you can see that it is generated from the earlier print so there is a connection.
I have used every printing technique covered in the course except multi block releif printing. This was a hard project and I take satisfaction in finishing it.
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