Gravura Brasileira

The works are an ongoing investigation of landscape. Much of my previous work has focused on the dry desert landscape of the Great Basin. In this exhibition I have turned away from the desert to consider the forests nearer to Portland, where I have lived for 30 years.

Whether considering the forest or the desert, I am drawn to extremes. The monotypes are based on my observations of the remains of trees, either fallen or cut down. These trees are part of the cycle of life and death that I have focused upon in my paintings, prints and drawings.

But I am also fascinated by formal considerations. I look at these trunks and branches and observe how they twist about each other in very complicated relationships, moving back and forth, towards the viewer and then underneath into the shadows. For me, it is an intellectual challenge to try to convincingly represent the twisted convolutions of these branches. Although I could have worked directly on paper, I have chosen to make monotypes because I prefer the way that watercolor dries on the surface of the plate in contrast to the way that watercolor or ink sits when applied directly to paper.

Pigment prints represent a second group of work in this exhibition. Many years ago, when I first started to explore the relationship between photography and drawing, I suppressed gesture and strived to duplicate the random dot structure of a photograph. With the arrival of Photoshop, I am now able to approach my work from the other side: to work directly within the photograph to create prints that are hybrids of photography and drawing. I continue to experiment. Some of these pigment prints seem closer to pure photography and others seem closer to drawing. Ultimately, for me, they are all prints, and demonstrate one role of printmaking: a central meeting point between photography and drawing.

Christy Wyckoff
March 2006