Proposal Abstract

Paper entitled ‘Embodiment. Bodily Engaged Printmaking’ investigates expanded printmaking practices by artists who incorporate the body into the process of print creation. Matrix derived from the body, skin used as the printing substrate, human as a carrier of print, body as a matrix itself—humanisation of printmaking is being driven to an upper level. In those activities, the question of the role of Master Printer is placed in a new light. Artist is present. Objectification of the body stands for depicting different individual or social concepts. ‘Covariance and layered structure—the indispensable attributes of broadly defined graphic art—are today right in the focus of artistic experiments’ (Marta Anna Raczek-Karcz). Projects discussed in the paper aim at breaking the classic paradigm of matrix-print and redefining the concepts fundamental for printmaking, and they also introduce contemporary recognition of the printmaking medium. All of those activities raise the following questions: is it still a graphic print? Is it still a graphic matrix? Closeness and palpability of print, its substantiality, depicts the influence of relations and interactions on people, and follows the narration from the concept of tabula rasa to the superstructure of meanings, emotions and content. The paper investigates, among others, works by Costa Rican printmaker Priscilla Romero Cubero, Australian artist Angelica Harris-Faull, American printmaker and medicine doctor Eric Avery and Polish artist Zuzanna Dyrda (author herself). All featured projects employ the body as a medium of cultural content, which at the same time possesses a material character. By incorporating the human body in creating prints, these artists fight with their own fears which are incomprehensible or difficult to accept phenomena. Presented projects, prints, performances, matrices are united around similar ideas—they all embody the print.