Lorca Suite
2017
The Lorca Suite was completed during an invitational research and creation artist residency at Malaspina Printmakers Workshop. Consisting of six archival ink-jet prints, this work follows upon my installations on the murders in Ciudad Juarez, the murder of 43 Mexican student teachers in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero (September 2014), and the on-going government-related deaths and violence in Mexico and Guatemala. Central to this work is a short poem by Spanish playwright and poet Garcia Lorca, who himself was murdered during the Spanish Civil War.
Initial plans to work in Moku Hanga, a Japanese water-based woodblock method, were thwarted by circumstances; after considering alternatives, the digital print process was chosen, especially to achieve the highly saturated colours I desired. Using primarily original photos, and Federico Garcia Lorca’s poem, these prints include aspects of a range of traditional print processes: the black eyes, which suggest traditional woodcut, are taken from collected photographs of Ciudad Juarez murder victims, while—upon close examination—the clouds look as if they’ve been printed as silkscreens. The text references broadsheets and posters, and the dozens of digital layers necessary to arrive at the final images are true to the layering of traditional print processes.
Tell my friends that I've died.
Tell them that I'm out here in the sky, my eyes wide open.
My face covered up by this endless blue shroud.
That I've gone off, empty, to the stars.
Federico Garcia Lorca
