When I moved to Venice one year ago to make prints, one of my many fears was that any image of the city I created would only be dull and clumsy in comparison to the real thing. I couldn’t even fathom how to go about rendering its beauty on paper, and so for the first six or seven months I produced works that had nothing to do with Venice. When someone proposed that my prints didn’t show any of myself in them, nor any trace of where I was, I sulked, feeling misunderstood by others, and simultaneously doubting myself. However, it was a comment that has stayed with me ever since, and this project was a move both to work more loosely, helped by larger dimensions, and to finally make use of my environment. In March I began to look more closely at my surroundings, encouraged by a visitor whose acute observations always provoke reflection and inspiration. By breaking down the whole, the panoramic views, and examining Venice from the water, that is, at eye level, I began to discover compositions of an endless wealth of materials, surfaces, and colors. The city suddenly became an enormous mosaic of textural details. The format of a book, in which the prints extend to the very edges of the pages, brings the works off the wall and into the viewer’s hands, in an effort to transform observer into participator. One’s experience with the prints in this context, as with the city from the canals, becomes more intimate and tactile.
The plates for all eight images were done on cardboard with some or all of the following materials: gesso, carborundum, coffee grounds, glue, shellac.