Being in the Land (Hatteras)
Robyn Moore


Media: Photopolymer Gravure on Hahnemuhle Copperplate
Framed Size: 23.5"x20"
Price: $1000

Artist Statement:
Being in the Land
Landscapes are imprinted with memory. The land embodies the existence of all living things, the birth and transformation of geological bodies, and the more ephemeral traces left by weather, water, light and wind. Landscape is, effectively, constituted by the living and dying of such countless beings, both human and other-than-human, through all of deep time.

This memory is not an abstraction. Tree rings, fossils, and air bubbles encased in ancient ice are all examples of how the land remembers. But the land is also home to the spectral and the invisible. Bodies are buried so far down and much is withheld from view. How can we make contact with and understand what we feel but cannot see in the land?

Being in the Land is a series of photopolymer gravure prints inspired by my desire to make contact with the memory and intelligence embodied by landscapes. Through the creation of these images, I hope to cultivate empathy and solidarity with these other beings otherwise lost or unknown.


Artist Bio:
Robyn Moore is a photomedia artist originally from Virginia. Her practice explores the revelatory capabilities and potential of experimental and alternative photographic processes and techniques. Her research interests include deep time, geology, biosemiotics, phenomenology, empathic imagining and the ways in which visibly material photographic practices can encourage new ways of seeing, sensing and interacting with other beings and landscapes. Robyn holds a PhD in Visual Arts (Photomedia) from Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia and a MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Currently, Robyn is an Associate Professor of Photography in the Department of Art and Design at Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky USA.

Process:
The works selected for (S)Light of Hand are photopolymer gravure prints. They begin as digital images made with a DSLR. Thereafter I edit these images in Photoshop to make a transparency on an inkjet printer. I then expose this transparency onto a photopolymer plate using a UV exposure unit. After exposure I wash out the plate with water. Areas that were not exposed wash away, which creates areas that hold ink; areas that were exposed harden, which creates your highlights. By also exposing the plate with an aquatint screen before wash-out, you can achieve areas of rich black and fine details. I also experiment extensively with mark-making during the wash-out process. For example, I may brush the plate aggressively with a bristle brush to create all sorts of lines and textures in the final print. After the plate is washed out and dried, I then ink it up using Akua intaglio inks and print on an etching press.