Title

Three textures (1986).

Author

Orchard, Ken

Details

1989

Publication date

1989

Type

About the work

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

Three Textures (1986)

For the work Three Textures (1986) an important characteristic in the process of using engraved material with collaged elements from other engravings was that the graphic line of separation between the base illustration and the additional element was texturally camouflaged. . This concealment of joins, the lines of rupturing between an image and its parts, was further enhanced by the process of simplification that the photocopy process introduced. The photocopier synthesised as well as distorted the linear marks.

By juxtaposition the content of the three images, each with their original and specific locations still in evidence, become bonded into one whole, each element making pictorial and metaphorical reference to those ones that abut it. This valency between the elements of Three Textures finds it double in the statement/equation which accompanies the work. The nine words, as set out below offer descriptive correspondences to the various ways in which the elements of each image can be cross-referenced with those next to it.

    prayer           offering           suppliance
    diver             cuppa              kisser
    shimmering   steaming          breathing

The title Three Textures is as much a reference to this troika that exists between these figurative parts as it is to the reproductive processes of engraving, photocopy distortion and woodblock carving that are invested in the surfaces as optical residues.
 

Ken Orchard, 1989