Letterpress
Metal type
Wood type
Edition 5 - 10
Metal type
Wood type
Edition 5 - 10
A well meaning someone once asked me “Don’t you think that working with these tools is anachronous?” I had to look up “anachronous.” Then, I worried. “Anachronistic” has been ringing in my head ever since. Deep in my contrarian, feminist gut I know that I tethered my art practice to tools that belong to another time. I could have made an argument that painting is equally anachronistic. Instead, I doubted. I knew that mine is a habit that involves hoarding, can be sentimental and possibly, yuck, nostalgic. It touched on craft.
To work with old wood and metal type and an ever-rusting printing press you have to be just a teenie tiny bit reclusive. This process is notoriously time consuming and laborious and often attracts the pedantics. I, on the other hand, wanted to create prints that were organic, dynamic, unexpected and did not follow the right angles that are typical of letterpress prints. It feels mischievous to work against how the equipment has been used in the past, like I am getting away with something. Since I understand the logic of the tools I am able to subvert their original purpose, which was to print with mechanical precision and clarity. Am I equating my resistance to the mechanical constraints to the resistance against heteronormative, patriarchal, white supremacist structures? On some level, yes and also I am screaming into the void which is necessary work if I am to remain somewhat sane. Being a non-neurotypical person with chronic health problems, this is a special task. The colorful and dynamic compositions of my work are a kind of a resistance, rendered in variations that are organic and full of life and produced in multiples.
I carefully curate the typographic collection and the printing plates in my studio. I use abstract plates and create my own printing plates using discarded materials, cardboard and duct tape. I use very delicate type printed next to duck-taped plates to create a dynamic and ethereal effect. The abstracted compositions include my writing that is inspired by movement, migration and immigration. I write in English and Croatian. The writing fragments speak to a loss and a redefinition of home, in the context of body, place and country. The series of numbered works is affectionately called Electric Biology and was inspired by my own and the experience of my loved ones living with neurological conditions. The visual abstractions in the series are inspired by the electrical impulses in the brain, whose activity governs behavior, language and consciousness. This led me to working with pieces of language and exploring fragmentation as a fundamental human condition.
2014 - present
To work with old wood and metal type and an ever-rusting printing press you have to be just a teenie tiny bit reclusive. This process is notoriously time consuming and laborious and often attracts the pedantics. I, on the other hand, wanted to create prints that were organic, dynamic, unexpected and did not follow the right angles that are typical of letterpress prints. It feels mischievous to work against how the equipment has been used in the past, like I am getting away with something. Since I understand the logic of the tools I am able to subvert their original purpose, which was to print with mechanical precision and clarity. Am I equating my resistance to the mechanical constraints to the resistance against heteronormative, patriarchal, white supremacist structures? On some level, yes and also I am screaming into the void which is necessary work if I am to remain somewhat sane. Being a non-neurotypical person with chronic health problems, this is a special task. The colorful and dynamic compositions of my work are a kind of a resistance, rendered in variations that are organic and full of life and produced in multiples.
I carefully curate the typographic collection and the printing plates in my studio. I use abstract plates and create my own printing plates using discarded materials, cardboard and duct tape. I use very delicate type printed next to duck-taped plates to create a dynamic and ethereal effect. The abstracted compositions include my writing that is inspired by movement, migration and immigration. I write in English and Croatian. The writing fragments speak to a loss and a redefinition of home, in the context of body, place and country. The series of numbered works is affectionately called Electric Biology and was inspired by my own and the experience of my loved ones living with neurological conditions. The visual abstractions in the series are inspired by the electrical impulses in the brain, whose activity governs behavior, language and consciousness. This led me to working with pieces of language and exploring fragmentation as a fundamental human condition.
2014 - present