Seven Women 3
- Artist:
- Type: Print
- Medium: Monotype
- Production Date: 2022
- Description: In the autumn of 2022, Ken Currie's exhibition
Chunnacas na mairbh beò (The Dead Have Been
Seen Alive) was presented at Glasgow Print Studio. This series of Seven Women formed a part of the exhibition. The title of the exhibition was taken from Sorley MacLean's 'Hallaig', a poetic response to the Clearances on the Isle of Raasay. "the dead have been seen alive" is an evocative, mysterious and haunting line which is open to speculation.
Inspired by and propelled by the printmaking techniques which Currie studied and began to master in 2015, this exhibition was composed of a series of figures broadly influenced by the study of Egyptian Funerary portraits from AD 40-250.
Frozen in time like photographs, these ancient and remarkable images are unique, extraordinarily beautiful artefacts which have, for many years, fascinated and haunted Currie.
Here, Currie invites the viewer to draw their own conclusions about who the figures in his
monotypes might be and how they came to be depicted by Currie. Like the funerary portraits of AD 40-250, the heads and figures in Currie's monotypes appear ghostly and distressed. Currie achieves this through the particular technique he has employed, developed over many years of experimentation. Currie paints quickly and broadly onto a copper plate in oils after building up layers of printing ink onto paper, with each layer taking several weeks to dry. The first print (or 'pull' in printmaking terms) is usually disregarded or scrapped, it is the second or third in which he achieves the desired effect, these are known as 'ghosts'.
"I allow a maximum of three imprints from one plate - an initial imprint, a ghost, or cognate, and a second ghost. These are usually imprinted on grounds that have been built up over a period of weeks in different layers. Each imprint can be worked on and manipulated after printing but only up to a point as too much of this will make it cease to be a monotype and more like a painting.
Knowing when to stop can be difficult. The important thing is that after the three imprints are taken the painted image on the plate is wiped away with turps so it ceases to exist except as a series of unique imprints on paper. The failure rate is very high but when it all comes together the results can be compelling." - Dimensions: Framed: 61.6cm (H) x 46cm (W)
Unframed: 44.5cm (H) x 29.5cm (W) - Digital Copy:A digital copy exists.
- Location: Pathfoot Gallery 1
- Accession Number: 2023.90
- Contact: University of Stirling Art Collection
