![SUIT REQUIRED [*tentacles optional]..Combination Prints of a Floor Vinyl Gotograph... "T...](https://img4.glartent.com/029/619/853342520296191.jpg)
27/10/2024
SUIT REQUIRED [*tentacles optional]..Combination Prints of a Floor Vinyl Gotograph...
"The dress code used to be so strict here - but these days they'll let any old monster in!! ...It’s an Outrageous Travesty, I’m telling you!!!"
Another print in the "Born Hideous" series. From a small sheet of floor vinyl I "pick and peel stripped" small strips of the shiny layer of the floor vinyl leaving an excision behind with a layer of revealed insulating cushion positioned a little lower that I could either avoid ink being applied to by only rubbing a thin layer of paint on the top relief style, or that I could alternatively fill up with ink and rub away on the most of what had spilled over, meaning that only the excised areas were filled with ink (seeing that it had absorbed a bit into the soft insulating layer of floor vinyl, i.e. linoleum.
Because these excisions are way too big and deep to be considered intaglio, I call it ‘excision inking’. Maybe there's already an existing word for this practice? Still, in all honesty even if there is existing terminology, I'd probably go on using the one I invented anyway.
I used one of the sides of a two sided floor vinyl 'embossing folder' that I developed to make precise impressions in paper. I'll be describing the various methods I use to make 3-D impressions in paper with various cuts, moulds and excised materials, but I thought I'd start with this one seeing that the finished products most closely resemble traditional printmaking and was achieved using a rollling press.
By the way, if you are wondering what a 'gotograph' is, it is the word I invented to refer to the prints or inked impressions I make from non-traditional printing surfaces. I adore recycling and finding new ways to use things people throw away. It not only means reusing something that is free avoiding unnecessary waste... but it is transgressive and against existing social practices which would involve me spending lots of money in expensive art shops. This personal urgency to find my own way to do things has always been a part of me.
I made two paints for this purpose: one made out of acrylic primer, thickening agent, red ink and an extremely expensive and difficult to get hold of secret ingredient (...that may well've been a 25c tube of patch glue - I'm just not sure, alright?!). The other paint was one I made from whizzing into smithereens some charcoal and coloured chalk and then laboriosly mixing the ashy dust into linseed oil.
The extremely hard to get hold of and enormously expensive hue pulverizer (also commonly known as a “coffee grinder” that costs, like, 50 cents at the two dollar shop) worked like a charm! Pity you can’t get one of these unique devices seeing how few two dollar shops there are around these days...
The intention was deliberate: to fill the excisions with oil paint then rougly rub off what was left at the top, and then apply the acrylicc paint relief style, fullly aware that there would be some spaces that the paint would stick less easily to, producing those strange textures and shades.
I loved the way it turned out!
Here's to oil/acrylic combination gotographs made using excision inking!
..Unfortunately, a lot of people don't respond very positively to what I make because I make it with a defiant thumb on the nose to the tradition, even if it is done with a wink and a smile and a very large dose of self parody. It's interesting, then, that this work ended up being about those very moments when people put me on the spot and make me feel like I'm genuinely strange or there's something wrong with me. I mean, I wear a suit, so why don't people like me?! It's a horrible feeling I genuinely despise. I don't mind the idea of having tentacles. But I very much mind being made to feel awful about having them...
