Habla!

Mixed media xylocollage on paper (1/1), 50 x 50 cm, £150

Homemade baren (top)

Homemade baren (bottom)

I titled this piece ‘Speak!’ because it looks like Boxi is demanding that someone speak with him. With this piece I began making one-off prints by carving into reclaimed wood. I used my homemade baren to press the paper to the wood to transfer the image. I produced one final ‘for sale’ piece, and others to use as paste-ups on the street. 

Curator’s Notes: Xylography is an ancient printing technique developed in China and Japan in the 8th and 9th centuries. The image in carved in relief into a wooden block, which is then inked. Paper is pressed to the block to transfer the image.

Baren refers to a hand tool with a flat bottom and a knotted handle used in Japanese woodblock printing to burnish the back of the paper in order to transfer ink from the plate to the sheet.