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Technology, 2006, 13" x 19", A scanned collage of plaster, metal and tar, a circuit board, an architectural drawing and a medical illlustration were combined in Adobe Photoshop and printed with the HP 9180, full bleed on Hahnemuhle smooth fine art paper.
Richard Noyce's book, "Printmaking at the Edge" collects the images and ideas behind 45 artists from 16 countries and explores the innovative techniques printmakers are using today. The topics covered range from the challenges of new technology and materials (for example, the latest high-tech plates and specialty papers and inks) to the persistence of traditional techniques and the new directions they are taking (for example, digital techniques being used with silkscreen and wood engraving). All scales and stages of printmaking are dealt with. As the book became available in April 2006, Scott Betz began contacting the artists about a possible shared project that would help establish a greater sense of community between them. One of the most practical solutions, given the distance between participants would be to produce an edition for a print exchange portfolio, but how can a boxed set of prints qualify as "at the Edge"?
"Further ... Artists from the book Printmaking at the Edge" became the portfolio theme and title and the real challenge sent to the participants was to take their work further towards the "edge(s)" as Noyce writes in his book. The prints have already been exhibited at several locations, including Salem College (Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S.), Grafikos Galerija (Kaunas, Lithuania), and Galleria Harmonia (Jyväskylä, Finland). Additionally, several of the artists will participate in the Southern Graphics Council Annual Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. in March 2007.
In the catalog, Sabrina DeTurk, writes "Dot Krause holds a respected place in the history of American printmaking as one of the first print artists to embrace the possibilities inherent in digital technology. It is fitting, therefore, that her contribution to this portfolio should bear the title Technology and link together several motifs that have surfaced at various points in her work and career. The use of collage is a hallmark of Krause's work and serves her well in its ability to simultaneously reveal and obscure multiple layers in a work of art. In this image, the dense bottom portion of the print includes images of a computer circuit board atop a dark background.
This in turns gives way to red swath across the middle tier of the image and subsequently to a delicate anatomical drawing of the human nervous system and brain, highlighted against a pale background at the top.What is the role that technology is meant to play in this image and, perhaps, in our world as a whole? Does the circuit board serve as the base from which human and structure (represented by an architectural drawing lying grid-like across two-thirds of the print) emerge? If so, should that base be seen as generative? Or is it problematic - pushed to the depths while human cognition rises into the light? I doubt that Krause's print is meant to answer those questions - rather, in keeping with the rest of her work, it encourages us to keep asking them."
Sabrina DeTurk, Winston-Salem, NC