Intimate exchanges: MFA Thesis - Printmaking

Abstract

Intimate Exchanges represents the culmination of a journey from embodied material investigation to devotional artmaking as a refuge for the body. This project has its origins in my research of phenomenology, ritual theory, and queer intimacy. The action of touch is central both to acts of intimacy as well as the field of phenomenology which promotes embodied perception. Some creative mediums have a greater intimacy of touch in the process of their making and for me, printmaking is one of those mediums. After a brief introduction to natural dyes, I was pulled in by their potential for embodied investigation and created a methodology to turn my body and its movements into the printing mechanism, further enhancing the embodiment of printmaking.