Jazz Green : Artist Journal

Posts tagged ‘printmaking’

art SOS

May 14th, 2010

SOS is an acronym for Suffolk Open Studios, a collective of some one hundred and fifty artists from across the county, that, as the name suggests, open their artist studios and creative workspaces for a weekend (or two)… this is my first time as an exhibiting artist with SOS (taking a hiatus from the HWAT collective) – below are three small works that I have put into the SOS members’ group exhibition, which opens this weekend at the historic and spendid Blackthorpe Barns


siam, maroc and cretan 2010, mixed media intaglio collagraphs on paper, mounted on canvas, 5″ x 5″ x 1.5″ – part of a new and ongoing series inspired by virtual travels and colour associations…

There are some strange light effects in the barn; tiny holes in the barn’s framework where the sunlight squeezes in, scattering unusually bright ovoid lightspots across the artworks…

here is one of the aforementioned intaglio abstracts on canvas…


siam, 2010, mixed media intaglio collagraph on canvas, 5″ x 5″ x 1.5″


siam, detail

Siam, alluded to in the textured striations and the greeny gold. Siam, now known as Thailand, is a country ravaged by natural disasters, and now in even deeper turmoil with much political and social unrest in its capital, Bangkok… these landscape images seem to make for nicer stories… I try to imagine what it must be like to experience such a deeply sculpted landscape – it is so flat here…


Thailand, rice fields

I have also put in a large blue-green abstract painting to convey a cool, minimalist, all-green ambience to my slimline wall exhibit in Blackthorpe Barns… the SOS art exhibition is open daily 11am-5pm, until 24 May 2010..

I have been continuing with the quick observational studies in my sketchbooks… am wondering if I should pursue my virtual travels through sketchbook studies too?…

Continuing with my virtual travels… I have been using colour, google maps and other tools to determine cultural or geographical locations to visit. These works are becoming small mementos to those virtual journeys – travelling around the world in one hundred abstracts…

I have selected these five abstracts as part of my wall exhibit for the SOS exhibition next week… From left to right: kokoda, siam, maroc, cretan and suomi… all are hand-coloured intaglio collagraphs on paper on canvas…

Another ‘one hundred’ has been partly inspired or perhaps just consolidated by the first chapter of the series, A history of the World in One Hundred Objects – fascinating, as it is a radio programme, and so naturally conjures up images that may be quite different to the reality.


maroc, 2010

Some images to illustrate – too  travel-weary to articulate much in words…


terraced fields and trees  – Moroccan landscape…


Marrakech market place – Moroccan souk…


wall and door, Marrakech

I would quite like to visit Morocco one day – but musn’t grumble, things could be worse, when one door closes…

I have been quietly working on more small, intaglio print canvases (if that is not a oxymoron in artistic terms)… Here are some artfully stacked up in the studio…

I have had four of these small canvases accepted for a show in the summer (NCA 2010) – quietly chuffed as I thought at first it would be a risk to submit some lightweight works rather than a large canvas or two, but out of 596 submissions they’ve selected just 69 works for the final exhibition…

I now have to work on my artist statement for the illustrated catalogue… So firstly, what are these little things, how are they made…? Below shows one intaglio print as it is collaged onto the canvas…

They first look like this one, below (printed on hahnemule paper)… I think I will keep this one as a conventional flat print… but the others begin their transition into a more 3D object…

some more prints… decidedly green and grey…

Why prints and not paintings? It has something to do with the initial fabrication of the matrix (and the resulting multiples) which can be subtly transformed each time – altering by sanding, incising, cutting and pasting – so no two prints are the same… and a smooth sheet of paper is infinitely mouldable, thereby the altered print becomes a tactile object… I have been jotting down a few words to explore further my idea of virtual world travels inspired by selected colours (read more about my colour values here)… in turn creating a faux allusion or object, a fragment, symbol, souvenir, memento, remnant, an abstract relic or impression of a location.. I have another twelve or so destinations to explore this week…

I sometimes feel I am just talking to a brick wall… but nature sees every crevice as a potential growing opportunity… yep, I probably do need to get out more…

photo of drain pipe and brick wall with plant growing half way up
[buddleia, brick wall and drainpipe]

photo of with apple tree
[apple tree in city building lot]

As an addendum, I recalled today the time that I sold off the majority of my possessions (the usual bric-a-brac – vintage clothes, lots of kitsch, retro stuff, even two director’s chairs and a fake palm tree) at a Brighton car boot sale, in order to buy a car. I kept back one one thing, Da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’ as a jigsaw puzzle (it was a feat to complete and was suitably framed). It was a trashy souvenir of sorts, a personal reminder of student digs and student days… but very different to the holiday souvenir, one that is manufactured in duplicate to fulfil a desire to take something unique home… most of those also end up at the memorial service to forgotten holidays, the car boot sale…

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The website of British Fine Artist Jazz Green MA RCA. Abstract landscape paintings, fine art photography. All images and text copyright the artist.