Sharla Jean Hoskin

For this piece I am working with the archetype pair, Artist/Engineer. I selected the Artist and Engineer combination because my background is a mixture of art and science. My family, my education, and my career were all a balance of these two problem-solving methods. Interestingly my preferred process of printmaking also combines science and art. I enjoy balancing the planning involved in preparing to print with the more intuitive layering of patterns and shapes in the studio.

The print for this exhibition was created using screen printing. Currently, I work with acrylic ink on paper. I take ideas from concept to screen using photography, Procreate, Adobe Illustrator, and Cricut Design Space. My inspiration comes from nature and historic or ethnic patterns, which are abstracted to basic colors and shapes. My work is about color experimentation and movement. I am fascinated by vanishing and revealing edges, shapes, and layers. Visual exploration is the essential requirement for me.

Typically, my work is not intended to be narrative, however, this print focuses on the difference between the artist and the engineer using a composition with two dominant elements. One set is geometric, representing the engineer. The other set is organic for the artist. The organic shape originated as a photograph of a kale plant in my container garden. It was reduced to a high contrast black and white image to create a screen for printing.

The color strategy of warm vs cool illustrates two sides to thinking. The building of shapes is an exploration of layers with clear or ambiguous edges. These are analogous to the complexity in thought. The highlight in the center is created by placing the light silver against the dark background. Sometimes in the studio the right effect just appears after all the measurements, color mixing, and planning. In this case the metaphor is that the light is the answer, the result of two types of thinking.

I selected the title Symphony, based on one of the aptitudes discussed by Daniel H. Pink in A Whole New Mind:

“Symphony is the ability to put together the pieces. It is the capacity to synthesize rather than to analyze; to see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields; to detect broad patterns rather than to deliver specific answers; and to invent something new by combining elements nobody else thought to pair” (p. 126).

Symphony 2022 11.5” x 10” Screen Print on Paper NFS sjhoskin1@gmail.com