This work grew out of my curiosity about how we communicate through the images we construct. The printmaking method of woodcut was especially suited to this topic as it has a long tradition of use for both art and mass communication.
In the past year, I challenged myself to use the traditional black and white of the woodcut to investigate the mass of constructed images available to me through the media, the Internet and art history. I also hunted back through old sketchbooks and childhood drawings, gleaning and gathering. The act of carving these images into the wood unified and transformed them, creating a space for the viewer to discover a universe of personal meaning.
Each piece is a glorious banquet, tempting the viewer to indulge in its layered richness. Juxtaposition finds echoes and interrelationships of things that seem at first to have no connection. History and culture join experiences into narrative, organize order within chaos. The familiar and the unfamiliar are woven together inextricably. The pleasure of recognition is coupled with the surprise of the new. So much is crammed into each piece that it spills over. The viewer must wrestle with the work to grasp all of its complexity.
Much of my source material I saw through the lens of multiple technologies—photography, printing, digitization—the result of many people passing along an image like a torch from hand to hand. The making and selection of images became both the process I was using and the focus of the work.
Why are some images chosen while others are ignored? What makes an image compelling? What changes when an image is reproduced and what remains the same? What role does the context of the image play? If the context is changed does it affect what the image conveys?
I continue to deepen my exploration of these ideas. I want to push myself further, both technically and artistically using these images as a lever to pry open my assumptions about how I make art.
Mary Krieger
November 2006