Fantasie

Fantasie is a part of my Reverb Series, a body of large-scale monoprints that draws inspiration from the forest of symbols and the intriguing concept of synesthesia found in Baudelaire’s poem, “Correspondences”.

I named Fantasie after a type of improvisational musical composition that emphasizes imagination.
As a flute player, I think of Fantasies as detailed, technical pieces full of quick jumps, key changes, and accidentals.

I see those jumps in the spaces between the looping calligraphic text on both sides of the print. Likewise, I view emphasis points on the print as the changes in key, speed, and style that give shape to a Fantasie.

Like the other prints in my Reverb Series, Fantasie is inspired by the forest of symbols and the synesthetic concepts in Baudelaire’s poem, “Correspondences”.  Synesthesia is a condition in which one type of sensation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color. Each one of my prints carries a different tune for me, based on its size, its colors, and the marks upon its surface.

I suspend my prints from the ceiling in groups much like I would arrange dancers on a stage. The gilded surfaces of the prints reflect each other and the ambient light in the exhibition space. And the papers flutter and dance with air currents in the space as well as the movements of passersby. Thus both the prints and viewers engaged in a quiet call and response dance.

My hope is that taking a moment to play with art will spark a greater awareness in the participant’s surroundings—the sounds, the air currents, the smells, the colors, the light—which she or he will then carry beyond the exhibition space.

Media: Wax grattage, relief print, frottage, and drawing on aluminum-gilded mulberry paper

Size: 60” h x 11” w

Edition: 1/1

Series: Reverb

Installation Views