Primario

Mixed media xylocollage on paper (1/1), 96 x 56 cm, £200

Homemade baren (top)

Homemade baren (bottom)

This discombobulated Boxi represents the primitive instinct to exist and feel whole. I called this piece ‘First’ because it was my first woodblock print, and where my love of that technique started. I didn’t have a single block large enough to create the entire body, so I used multiple smaller blocks. I used my homemade baren to press the paper to the wood to transfer the image. I embellished the piece with a second technique: collage.

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.