artist
statement
“I work with tengujo, an exceptionally thin Japanese paper (washi) most often used in book and document conservation, to create prints using a unique adaptation of trace monotype printmaking. My method involves mark-making by transferring ink from an inked glass plate to the underside of the paper by means of applied pressure with various tools. All printing is done entirely by hand, without the use of a printmaking press, as I manipulate scrapers, squeegees, and clay shapers, as well as my hand pressure, to make varying marks. The paper is ethereal yet strong enough for me to work in this way. The paper's remarkable thinness allows the ink marks to show through to the top surface, yet stay transparent, and this distinct attribute is my basis for using it.
Additionally, after pressing the initial print, enough ink remains on the plate to produce a “ghost print”, the negative image left behind from the first print’s creation. The ghost print is muted and elusive; it retains a memory of the original marks but offers a new perspective. The print’s ‘ghostly’ quality and the washi’s delicacy, together compound the feeling of transience.
Once the prints are dry, I layer them together, visualizing the translucent composition, and laminate them onto wood panels using rice paste. Altogether, the delicate material becomes dimensional and permanent. Similar to collage, the final artwork is a sum of parts; but, unlike typical collage work, my prints are fully-intact sheets that span the panel substrate, and the imagery comes from the top-down see-through effect. As the translucent washi prints are layered over each other, I allow certain marks, colors, and irregularities to show, shaping the composition; some of these same aspects are concealed, requiring concession between what is seen and what is obscured.
In this body of work, I focused on a repeating mark that is orderly yet organic. Many of the patterns I created have a thatched quality—a consideration of the ways in which the human hand gathers, weaves, and reinterprets material. I’m interested in the quiet tension between structure and spontaneity, discovered through repetition, variation, and material sensitivity. This work is a meditation on transformation— how simple gestures accumulate into complex forms.”
- krista mezzadri
about the artist
(b. 1987) Lives and works in Buffalo, New York.
“I engage with the coexistence of opposites, therefore my work includes many opposing physical elements together, like tissue and wood, light and darkness, geometry and irregularity. Taken a step further, I’m interested in the meeting point of these opposites, their dynamic dependence which only alludes to beauty.
In my ongoing body of work, I make monotype prints by hand on translucent washi paper, layer and overlap the sheets, and laminate them together onto wood panels with paste. I arrived at my current process while investigating a way to layer forms in monotypes by utilizing translucent paper, rather than ink, as the layering element.
Throughout the work is an emphasis on a triangular motif, which I explore by relying on the gestural characteristic of my wrist in action with the tool. Additionally, the overlapped sheets create innumerable varying emotive forms, bringing an organic element to the rough geometry. There are aspects of the layering process that are spontaneous and couldn’t be replicated or considered before their immediate genesis; in effect, the imagery is born from the process.”