“After Vicksburg, Origami” by Mark Evans

*please contact 3csartcollective@gmail.com to confirm availability before purchase

Pyro-etching, ink, gouache, graphite on taskboard

12" x 12"

Denver, CO

IG: @monoprintedman

More from the artist: 

Lifelong creator since my mom placed her kids in front of construction paper, glue and tempera instead the TV.

I had spent about ten years monoprinting (until 2016) off gelatin plates when I saw some work in The Chazen Art Museum in Madison, WI, that had been altered using some super heated metals: large soft amber burnt shapes. The etched and sunburned homemade paper knocked me out and sent me home to figure it out.

The last 5 years has been a series of ‘experiments with materials’ months long journeys: how will paper burn/discolor? What other medium can I use? What will happen to water media under a hit iron? What kinds of tools can I find? (Answer, endless varieties of found objects - including antique soldering irons, found in junk shops, from the late 1800s). What kind of color can I use and not subsume the elegant pyro-etched surface?

After 4 solid years of experimenting, wrapped around a move from Wisconsin to Colorado, I feel close to understanding my new process. The nature of the tools I use, heated, and with some handling restriction, limits the size of media I can use (which is taskboard, a wonderful. Compressed wood pulp medium). I began working in strips, sets of three, like a visual haiku, surface mounted and floating on the wall. Sculptural.

The materials are sealed but not behind a frame, allowing for a more personal viewer’s experience. The nature of the marks seem to evoke points of memory, shapes that I’ve seen before but can’t specifically place, and I hope viewers will take time, slow down, look closer at the nuanced surface and circuits of lines and shapes.

The current Series - of which the submitted is part of - is my strongest world yet. I hope it creates a dance for the eyes.