26 February 2013

Lenten Devotionals

GroupPrint1
Using a different gray, I printed the shapes of the mourners' bodies with just a few highlights carved out.

I like when the season I'm working in matches the subject matter of a print. In this case, I'm making an image of Christ during the season of Lent, when Christians focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus. Since I don't normally observe Lent in the traditional way (giving up something for the month), I'm enjoying observing it in my art.

I grew up Protestant, but in the Roman Catholic church (and a few others too, I think) there's a Lenten devotional practice that revolves around a series of artistic representations called the "Stations of the Cross." These representations are often sculptural, and each one depicts an event in Christ's crucifixion and death. The scene I'm reproducing for this print is the Thirteenth Station, when Jesus' body is taken down from the cross and given to his mother and a few disciples. These are the mourners, and as I worked on this print about hate crimes against gay people, I was very much thinking about we who are left behind to grieve.

As you can see, I've removed the shape of Jesus' body so that the names of the murdered GLBTQ people can show through.

As I often do when the design allows, I'm creating the figures by the reduction method. After I printed the first shapes for the mourners' bodies, I carved away more on the same block:
BlockReduction
Reduction of block (second carving) in progress.

Then I printed again with a darker gray. I have one more reduction to go:
GroupPrint2

1 comment:

Terry Sargent Peart said...

This is very powerful. Leaving a negative image of Christ really works well. Another great print.