ENGRAVING
ROSER SERVALLS MUNAR
Graphic work This dossier is a synthesis of the graphic work I have been developing during the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years of my Fine Arts Bachelor’s degree in printing at the University of Barcelona. The purpose of this dossier is to show representative elements of my work and reveal how it has gradually evolved and finally found a definite form. This is a selection of the most distinctive pieces of my work. There are various features which characterize my work. It tends to have a vague organic shape, to be quite pictorial and to also have an abstract component. I generate images from the basic elements of drawing and painting (point, line, stain, etc) and I work on big surfaces because of the types of gestures I make, which have an important role in my way of working.
As I have been advancing in my projects, I have started to realise that the image tends to “go beyond� and expand outside the limits of the plate. Because of this, the graphic connotation of my work has a lot of sense. From the basic image created on the plate, I generate a deployment from the repetition and/or the double printing, emphasizing the expanding tendency of my gesture. This deployment, with its own rhythms and fractures, is created by taking the original graphic elements which I multiply through their printing, giving the sensation that they can expand or decrease until infinity.
The process Before presenting my graphic series, I would like to introduce some of my previous sculpture work in order to have a better understanding of the origins of my prints and to also reveal just how important the idea of process has been in my studies and in my way of working. No matter which technique I use, I always develop each project using a trial and error approach. This means that when I start a project, I don’t have a definite idea of what the end result will look like. I let my inspiration flow with the work in hand. It is about working relentlessly and trying a lot of things before choosing what works best.
Process has always been very important in the graphic world, and recently, this idea has spread into the rest of artistic expressions. In my case, I have some projects which give an example of it.“Tarlatan” is one of them. In this project, I did many experiments with this material, tarlatan, which allowed me to develop sort of three- dimensional organic shaped modules.
Drypoint work With a transdisciplinary intention, I represented graphically the essence of the three- dimensional organic shaped modules of tarlatan. The use of a stable plate allowed me to do some printing experiments, so I made a definitive jump to the idea of repetition and deployment with the double printing.
S/T, 2010 drypoint Hannem端le 450 gm p.p 50 x 60 100 x 60
Aquatint work The idea which guided all the process done in this work was the fluidity of movement. A good comparative to understand this concept is to imagine the movement of a fish shoal. The movement it does is similar to the fluidity I am talking about, compact but dynamic. I worked the image on a copper plate as if I were reproducing this movement through lineal brushstrokes, playing with its direction and its size. Through the double printing and the use of colour I started to play graphically with these fragments of “the fish shoal� in order to add interest, depth, movement and fluidity to the image.
S/T, 2011 aquatint, p. 30 x 46 Hannem端le 450 gm p.p 39 x 46
Lithography Thanks to the experimenting carried out in previous works, the ideas of fragment, multiplicity, spread/ decrease and deployment are definitely the thread which guide this project. Although I didn’t know what the final result of this project would be on starting it, I kept in mind these initial ideas. The features of the lithographic printing technique allowed me to produce quite a lot of printed material in a short time. In this way, I could play with the combination of this material to create a deployment where the transparency of the paper, the superposition and the displacement of the image are also crucial.
The kind of image I have created with the wash stain reminds me of a sort of delicate organic structure since the transparency of the wash and the paper used gives the work this connotation. This allows us to zoom from the whole of the deployment on the wall to the subtlety of the stain on the semitransparent paper without missing any shade of the subtle work.
S/T, 2012 litography Pergaminol, 55 gm p.p 35 x 15