Arcadian Troubles

No medium prior to the invention of the Internet has done more to bring image and text to millions of people. The sharing of images, the influencing of culture and audiences worldwide was also accomplished by the print a thousand years ago.

The various techniques incorporated for durability, capable of satisfying the visual demands of artists and publishers, brought to the art world a new language and a new range of beauty to the mark and the rendering of image. Each of the traditional forms of printmaking provides the artist with unique qualities in defining the line, value and form of image.

I make prints because they are prints. No other medium can provide the visual vocabulary uniquely inherent with that of an etching; it is its own genre. The characteristics of the idiom are the reason to explore it.

Each hand pulled print may be part of an edition of impressions made from the plate or plates used to hold the ink; but each print is also a unique work of art with subtle differences and ever so slight variations revealed only under close scrutiny. Each hand made impression always gives me a thrill when lifted off the press bed. The process is always demanding but at that moment, oh so rewarding.

Timothy McDowell