etchings

Etchings – Aquatinta

My Prints

Since 2013 my works are made in the print-workshop in the Kunsthaus Bethanien in Kreuzberg/Berlin.

Aquatint is an elaborate intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching. First marks are etched on a zinc plate, and then the aquatint process is applied. (Powdered resin is used to create a tonal effect. The resin is acid resistant and adhered to the plate by controlled heating. The tonal variation is controlled by the level of etching of the powdered areas. To prevent further etching areas are covered with asphalt.) On one plate there can be several independent aquatint areas. The whole process takes up to 30 hours of intensive work with the plate and the motif. During the greater part of this process the picture is not visible on the plate. All the working steps have to be done blindly. Hence during the process the picture has to be represented wholly in the mind. This intensive relationship with the motif leads to close examination of what could be the meaning of life for the represented individual, what meaning produces that kind of life and how it might feel to think in that way. The motif becomes representative for somebody who lives their life according to that set of values, to that particular “meaning of life”.

 

 

From 1999 until 2003 I worked as a Printworkshop-Instructor at the Institute of Fine Arts at the University of Karlsruhe. These are some of the prints of that time.