Description
Neige noire IV is a lithograph of a standing figure with a roughly sketched face. The body is formed with words. Letters from the alphabet float around the person’s extended arms.
Statement
Neige noire IV brings together ideas from science about the beginnings of the world, the natural world of experience and an intimate personal landscape. It is a continuation of my exploration with words and ideas concerning presence and absence and the experience of “snow” as a natural winter phenomenon and as television static or white noise.
The figure in Neige noire IV is an emblem that reappears in all the works in the Neige noire series and the subsequent Words Fell Finally series. It is an outline sketch of a woman standing. We don’t make artwork in a vacuum, for me it was a response to the once-ubiquitous Michael Snow series Walking Woman. I think of the figure as myself standing up for who I am, taking my place as a human being, not hiding, just standing there naked.
The following is a text written at the time of making the Neige noire suite of prints:
Although printmaking had been a full-time passion for me for many years at Engramme in Québec City, since moving to Montreal my research required exploring other media. Close to ten years had passed since I had done any substantial printmaking when I arrived at l’Atelier de l’Ile one Monday morning, late September for a two-week residency. I wasn’t worried that I had forgotten the intricacies of working in lithography. No, a more profound question was surfacing as I started to make my place at the studio; would I still find the printmaking process interesting and relevant to my work?
I had two subjects that I wanted to explore in lithography and I wanted them printed on my own handmade paper. I drew small self-portraits and printed them on a variety of papers : linen and cotton blends. Some had tiny letters printed previously by ink jet onto paper which were then cut and integrated into the pulp. In some of these prints, subsequent layers were printed in ink jet. I transferred a photocopy of an image of “tv-snow” or static from a video still onto a large stone. My goal was to make an edition of some thirty to forty prints of this image, each printed on a slightly different shade of handmade papers all composed of varying blends of opalescent white pigment, linen, cotton, washi and hemp. Later some of the prints from this edition would be selected to create a composite murale. All of the paper was made on site, each sheet specially made for each image.
Finding ways to draw attention to the empty space usually called background in a given work has always been important for me. The paper chosen for a print is integral to the life or vigour of the work, yet as support for the image it is often overlooked or remains invisible. This is the first time that I have made paper specifically for my lithographs. Working this way allowed me to completely integrate the paper as part of the image.
Irrespective of how much time passes between each printmaking session, putting those first lines down on a freshly grained stone is always accompanied with that intimidating whisper of, “Will this be good?” Mistakes can set one back several hours and demand a lot of extra elbow grease. But, drawing with that kind of pressure can result in some very lifeless drawings. I knew I was looking for new territory, new ways of expressing my ideas and I wanted specifically to abandon myself completely to the process. I told myself, “ I will go with whatever comes. I don’t care if it is ugly, clumsy, messy, beautiful or even lifeless; it doesn’t matter. I am using this as starting point for something new.”
And from this exploration of paper and lithography, came the exhibition, Neige noire presently showing at Sylviane Poirier art contemporain in Montreal. I am encouraged to know that printmaking, lithography especially is still able to inspire and challenge me.
Karen Trask, Residency at Val David, Québec, February 2005