Nomas* Projects / Art, Dundee

It Starts With Nothing

It Starts With Nothing

Copperplate mezzotint

I'm interested in something that was once owned by someone and soaked in some kind of memory, _and I am working on a technique called copperplate print mezzotint on the theme of time and memory.

In this technique, the copper plate is first chopped finely with a cutter, a base is made from a copper plate, _and a shadow is carved on the copper plate so that it looks exactly like the actual motif, _and it is filled with ink and pressed against the paper with a press.

I think that this long and indirect series of work visualizes the interaction between me and its actual objects.

I can't know the real memory of things, but I can see the people, the time, the region and the life that were there, I think.

My work uses thin copper plates, so they can be superimposed and printed on paper like a collage.

A sharp white line without ink is created on the edges of the superimposed plates. It will be a unique and interesting painting.

However, since they are thin editions, they cannot reproduce the characteristics of prints. The plates have a life span and if they are pressed several times, they die.

The plate is also an 'object' made of copper.

Copper plate 'Unlike the actual thing, it is the one that immediately ends the role of the plate.' I think that the copperplate, which is like an avatar of the real thing, tells me something that is ingrained in that thing.

I talk to things this way when I encounter something that seems to be soaked in time.

In general, there is an image that prints can be made exactly the same, but that is not the case. In terms of prints, there are classifications such as 'original prints' and 'reproduction prints'.

Even if they were printed using the same original plate, they are classified as completely different things. Depending on the state of the artist at the time the print is printed, the method of printing, and the way the ink is applied, each printed piece has a different character.

I believe they are one being with the same genes.

And as much as I love the finished work, I also love the copperplate itself which after printed works. I may be printing my work just to see the ink soaked copperplate.

Artist's Website

• Aya Shimamoto