I often like to imagine my artwork as a visual articulation of musical improvisation. Though a song may be repeated, each time it’s played it features new elements, effects, and notes. That same improvisational method is sought out through printmaking: while each artwork begins with a plan, an idea, or an overall concept, room is left to induce a new mark with each execution – playing with the replicability of a print matrix and the medium’s unique expressive possibilities. At its most basic stage, this working method involves impromptu, unrehearsed composition production.
The improvisational methods of Jackson Pollock serve as an example through which to produce images inspired by the news, American politics, art history, philosophical ideas – each informed by spontaneous reactions. Using a variety of traditional and contemporary printmaking techniques, images are developed across multiple sessions without working on a single piece for longer than an hour – applying printed images to express momentary impulses, though prefacing compositions with conceptual planning. The end goal is to create art bearing no static meaning, something which can be endlessly reinterpreted and reevaluated, or perhaps misunderstood altogether.
Not unlike the tantalizing films of David Lynch, my prints avoid narrative closure. I think uncertainty, confusion, and deception communicated through decontextualized words, images, symbols, and ideas compel viewers to investigate, hypnotized by repetitive images and absurdist collages, perhaps pondering various possible meanings. Ultimately, the primary conceptual objective is to take printmaking, a commercial discipline premised on the quick replication of a mass-producible matrix, and instead to produce unique images with efficient and expressive application. Leveraging visual improvisation to produce printed collages and unique imitations, no two impressions of an image are the same.
Jon McGee 