Seed: Textured Relief Print
Collography
Collagraphy is a printmaking technique that involves gluing a collage of materials onto a rigid surface, such as wood, plexiglass or cardboard, to create a textured printing plate (matrix). The word "collagraph" comes from the Greek words kolla, meaning glue, and graph, meaning drawing.
To start I suggest that you try experimenting with making a small collograph of abstract forms just to get the feel of the medium and how textures print. Then, if you like it, you could integrate some of your own personal imagery or symbols, perhaps a new interpretation of something you’ve already worked on. Translating an image into a new medium will require you to make significant modifications and embrace transformation as part of developing imagery.
Materials
- Matrix: cardboard
- Various textured materials for relief (corrugated cardboard, string, fabric, different thicknesses of card)
- White glue
- Printing ink (use black only for Belkis Ayon style intensity)
- Ink roller and plexiglass
- Paper
- Box cutter (Xacto knife)
- Newspaper
Inquiry Questions
What myths or symbols are meaningful to me?
What kind of imagery lends itself to collography?
Which materials create variegated textures that enhance my image?
How does using black and white only impact this image?
Artist Link: Belkis Ayon
Cuban artist Belkis Ayón was born in 1967 and died at the age of 32. I discovered this artist a few years ago at The Venice Biennale and immediately loved her work. She recently had a major show at Oxford Modern Art.
Her medium was collagraphy, a relief printing method that involves applying materials to a plate and building up textures. She worked almost exclusively in black and white, and the entire range of middle tones, which gives her images a startling graphic impact. Ayón believed the eyes in her works were the most captivating part of her pieces, some of which were huge, mural-sized works. The whiteness of the eyes created a stark contrast to the surrounding blacks and grays.
“She drew on character, myths and narratives from Abakua mythology (a kind of Afro-Cuban freemasonry) Her version with its legends involving snakes and fish, and the ritual sacrifice of the woman who discovered their secret fraternity, was avowedly feminist, in Castro’s patriarchal Cuba.”, Laura Cumming writes in the Guardian
Want to Investigate further?
Watch a video of the artist at work and a discussion with the curator Corina Matamoros