Somewhere between printmaking, photography and drawing: viewing contradictions within the printed image

Abstract

This paper examines a number of questions raised through my fine art practice, concerning how processes inherent in printmaking, photography and drawing may be brought together within a single image to open up new possibilities of reading surface and space and bring about new apprehensions of temporality. The central focus of this paper explores how surface and space are perceived and understood within an image, particularly where both digital photographic printmaking and hand-drawn marks co-exist. Using a number of my own artworks I will expose what I describe as a perceptual clash emerging on the printed picture plane. I argue that this clash emerges as a result of the ontological nature of certain printmaking processes, which embed certain visual elements within the resulting printed image. A number of key aspects around visibility of surface, orientation, materiality and time within the photographic printed image and the experience of tactile touch during making of the image will be investigated and will offer valuable insights into how and why this new perceptual space emerges within the image.

Keyword:

• printmaking
• digital photographic print
• drawing
• picture plane
• visual perception
• materiality
• temporality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on the contributor

Johanna Love has recently completed a practice-based PhD at Chelsea College of Art & Design, and is Pathway Leader for MA Printmaking at Camberwell College of Arts and Senior Lecturer BA Printmaking at The University of Brighton. Love's research explores the notion of dust, as generating new perceptions of viewing surface, materiality and time of the printed photographic image. Love exhibits widely both nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Drawn Together, GIG Gallery, Munich; Combinations, The Centre for Contemporary Printmaking, N Ireland; Behind the eyes: making pictures, Gallery North, Newcastle; Viewfinder, Artspaceh Gallery, Seoul, Korea; British Printmaking Japan, Kyoto Museum & Art Gallery, Japan, and Scope: New Photographic Practices, Tsinghua University, Beijing. Love lives and works in London.

Notes

1. In a short essay in 1979, Ian McKeever wrote of the major difference of the all over immediacy of the photographic field in contrast to the slow accumulation of certain drawing processes (1979). McKeever described drawing as an additive process over a blank support. In contrast, he described the photographic process as a deleting process, selecting and editing out of the frame.

2. Fer is discussing this in relation to Guisepppe Penone's The Imprint of Drawing series.