STOPPAGES

Stoppages, detail.

Stoppages, screenprint, ink on paper, 19" x 24", each 1/1, 2008.

Earlier this year, I spent several weeks exploring the possibilities of using silkscreens as a 'drawing' tool. By that I mean, I am using the medium (which is typically used to mechanically repeat the same image over and over) to slowly weave a unique and indeterminate line, in a linear and mobius-like fashion. Each print is unique.

The screens are essentially photograms; they are 'composed' by using gravity and dropping a single length of string onto a sensitized screen. It is then exposed and cleared, leaving me with a single, arbitrarily-composed line. I repeat that process a total of three times to create three separate, individual screens, each with a unique form. From there, I begin printing, one screen and one line at a time. It's a very slow process to arrive at 'finished' prints like the ones above; each shade of gray represents a single pass of a single screen, so there are roughly 12-15 passes per print.

These prints were conceptually inspired by Duchamp's  '3 Stoppages Etalon' work of 1915, where he used similar elements of chance and gravity to compose a line. I really had no idea what the finished line was going to look like, it was changing and evolving with each pass of the squeegee. I feel like the result is a little reminiscent of Brice Marden's Cold Mountain works, and I don't think I mind that at all.