“Touch #1” and “Vanitas 4/10” Visual Art by Sophia Murray

“Touch #1” and “Vanitas 4/10”

Visual Art by Sophia Murray

(click to enlarge images)

 

Vanitas is a 17th century Dutch genre of still­ life painting that served as a memento mori. I wanted to build on and offer my own interpretation of this traditional genre through a series of prints.

I explored the idea of mark-­making in this print series. I relied purely on human touch and just used my hands to create the designs. With my first design, I dipped my fingers into ink and dabbed the acetate with them. It creates an interesting texture from afar and when you see it up­-close, you can see some of the details of the fingerprints (depending on how much ink I applied onto the acetate). With the other acetate sheet, I swirled ink with my hands to create a spiralling design. I exposed the finished designs onto my silkscreen and then printed and layered them. While screen-­printing represents (in some ways) reproducibility, it also creates difference. Even though my designs could be infinitely layered and reproduced, they would never be exactly the same. There is something very human about this imperfection.