About nine months ago I started work on an international portfolio of prints on the theme of Distortion; today I finished the final touches on the 32 boxes. A total of 28 artists took part, and the prints measure 11″ square. There are some stunning results, and lots of quirky responses to the topic, which was defined as follows:
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The theme “Distortion” celebrates our subjective view of the world and calls for prints which require a unique vantage point, both physically as well as conceptually, in order to be read. This topic draws upon the tricks of perspective in Italian Renaissance ceilings and Dutch interiors, to the anamorphic work of Holbein and Escher, and 19C optical toys such as the magic mirror and praxinoscope. The act of human perception filters and alters vision though processes of synesthesia, color blindness, and hallucination. Technology both extends and distorts what we can see, through the use of infrared film and heat sensitive recording devices, X-Rays and other medical instrumentation, holograms, wide-angle lenses and prisms.
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The portfolio is in its glory here (apologies for the photographs, they are slightly dark at the top)
Lynne Blackburn
And here I am folding the boxes and filling them in the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The boxes were hand printed, cut and folded (like a fancy pizza box) individually. I am really pleased with the end result. Now I’m looking forward to meeting some of the artists in the next couple of days.