In response to Gaza...

From the series Black & Blue
Ink Jet Print on Paper
2009


I have recently joined an art group called Artnauts which was started at the University of Colorado at Boulder by Professor George Rivera. We have our first group exhibition of the year in Oaxaca, Mexico next month. The title of the show is Azag: Mirroring War and we have been asked to create work responding to what has been taking place in Gaza.

The piece I have created uses mutilated doll parts that I contact printed onto paper coated with Cyanotype. Unfortunately I am allergic to this wonderful process, so I have to limit my contact with the chemicals. I wanted to make an edition of the piece to submit to a political art show at Anderson Ranch and a possible exhibition with Artnauts in Gaza....so I headed for the scanner and layered the cyanotype imagery with a map of Israel and Palestine and printed it on my ink jet printer. Fortunately the scanned image still retains the quality of the hand applied emulsion.

The title of the series, Black & Blue, is both a reference to the blue printing process I am using and the terrible atrocities being committed to people on both sides of the issue. After I completed the piece, a friend commented that the body parts resemble milagros, which is fitting since the piece is about violence and healing. This is the second image in the series (the first is about nuclear power and the environment) that I have created and I plan to continue working with the cyanotype process, my scanner, and issues that are important to me.