Bare Woman 2/20 VE

In printmaking prints are numbered on the left indicating at which point the print was pulled in the edition and the total number of the edition.  In this case this is the second of 20 prints.  However this is also a Variable Edition (VE) so each print has a similar base - in this case the face - but everything else is different.  A print from a variable edition is unique, an original art piece.

The series is intended to portray some of the woman's life history using irony, for example in the "Oh No, Joe!" (below), "Cowgirl" and "Girl with One Star in Her Eye" prints.

.                       

These reference the romantic comics of the mid 20th century and the woman's cultural expectations for love, romance and a "happily ever after" life (In Agonizing Love Michael Barson explores the era of the melodramatic romance comics) juxtaposed against the reality portrayed in the cynical black humour of the "Bare Woman" - her starry-eyed view is being stripped away.

This is a multimedia hand-pulled print using woodcut and chine collé printmaking techniques.  The woodcut of the artist's face is embossed on different papers using chine collé overlaid with a rainbow roll.