Within my visual research I am interested in exploring psychology, identity, space, illusion, and the representation of reality—blurring the line between realities that are lived and those that exist within the mind. I create spaces that challenge our understanding of reality, obscuring what is real or illusory. Using the human figure in these spaces is a way of presenting the challenges our bodies and minds face with imperfection. The figure becomes deformed, disfigured by the marks that swarm around them. Their grotesque bodies present an imperfect psyche, but also act as an aesthetic device to propagate uncanny responses.

Printmaking, photography and drawing allow me to create a rich variety of visual languages to present in the final prints: bringing a familiarity and at the same time a strangeness, a feeling of questioning with what one is seeing. At different points in my process I am able to manipulate the image, bringing in what I call “photographic marks”–marks created during the exposure of the image, that create different kinds of effects I am trying to achieve. In the past my research has focused on Surrealist photographers and the darkroom manipulations they were experimenting with to achieve certain effects. Sometimes I am trying to obscure or remove a head, and other effects are more abstract. After taking several photographs the images are processed as photopolymer intaglio plates. Many marks and manipulations occur during this printmaking process as well and in the past I was able to attain varying results depending on the kinds of printmaking techniques used–digital inkjet and traditional intaglio, or digital inkjet and screen printing for example.

As I continue to work, researching identity, psychology, and illusion, I investigate different printmaking techniques and combinations of techniques, to not only help inform my conceptual interests, but expand my knowledge of what is possible in printmaking.

grace sippy 2019