Space Travel: Artist statement
Space Travel is a series of images depicting a free-form checkerboard composition in varied states of distortion. The works are hybrids of drawing, photography and printmaking techniques, and are intended to function within the dialogue of contemporary abstract painting.
The process of making each image alongside what is actually depicted is the subject matter, or content in Space Travel. Screen-printed images were devised first as photocopies by drawing with an analog photocopier. Experimentation with the photocopying process achieved effects similar to shutter speed manipulation in photography. The passing of time, as paper was moved across the glass of the photocopier during photocopying, became evident in the random elongation of the checkerboard motifs. This distortion is a recording of the split second travel of the image across the glass of the photocopier. Slight hand movements caused tremors and tears in the image.
Reflecting on this process I was reminded of action painting and the influence of the body during the act of painting.
David Hawley August 2005