“Euodia”, 1985

James Brown

“Euodia”, 1985

Colour etching on heavy wove paper (edition of 12).

Size: 14.5 x 13.9 cm

The subject of this print—a tree that attracts large blue butterflies that is still in my garden—is perhaps less important than the influences that went into concocting the composition. For instance, at the time I was very excited about the minimal textures and solid forms of early carved Venus figures (viz. Venus of Willendorf) and my mindset was locked into making seemingly endless paintings of these ladies—most ended up layered in my garden to stop weeds from growing. My head was also spinning about a painting that gripped my interest, “Overarm Still Life” (1964) (see https://www.artnet.com/artists/jon-molvig/overarm-still-life-EqGrxN2wX4G1UJRIOcx2VQ2) held by a local gallery and executed by Jon Molvig (1923–1970). There was a certain “something” about this painting in its sheer simplicity and energy that was riveting for me. Of course, the main influence is not hard to fathom: Japanese woodblock prints with the elegance of critically important lines.

Technically, to make this print I coated a square of lino with beeswax and incised the lines. I then etched the lino plate in caustic soda. The plate was inked in the same way as a metal plate with the exception that I rolled the blue ink as if the plate were a relief block over the installed brown ink in the etched lines with slight increased adjustment to the amount of oil in the blue so that the viscosity of the ink would not mess with the intaglio lines. In short, both colours were laid in a single trip through the etching press.