Printmaking and the performing object: MFA Thesis - Printmaking

Abstract

There were three objects on display in my thesis exhibit at the Dorsky Museum: A Theater A Book A Cross between a Book and a Theater After three years working the presses in the print studio at SUNY new Paltz, I have become attuned to printmaking as a mediated process. The rollers, the press beds, the silkscreen frames, the light tables have all been reminders that many phases separate the artist’s intention from the finished product. Printmaking is a medium in the truest sense, I have found – something that lies between the hand and the artwork – and the more time I have spent in the studio, the more my focus has shifted away from the fine art image as an outcome and towards printmaking itself as a technology. With this appreciation of printmaking not as an autonomous art form but as a medium, I have chosen to direct its myriad capacities towards developing a project in a domain not usually associated with fine art – puppet theater.