Repository logo
 

Recent work: William R. Howard

Date

1998

Authors

Howard, William R., author
Dormer, James T., advisor
Orman, Jack L., advisor
Simons, Stephen R., committee member

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Abstract

The work that I have accomplished during my graduate degree reflects an integration of traditional printmaking with some of the technological advancements in photography and computers. Although printmaking has not always been favorable to new and non-traditional techniques, current trends have broadened the definition of a print, embracing computer technology as one of the tools in intaglio printmaking. In my recent work I have combined traditional approaches with some of the newer technology. For example, in my prints a photograph is scanned on the computer where it is altered, then copied and transferred onto a zinc plate. It is then etched in a traditional manner and transformed into an intaglio plate. The distance from the photograph that is achieved through the etching process, enables me to attract audiences outside of photography such as printmakers and painters. The result is, I believe, a unique work of art that focuses on my own sensibilities as an individual and artist. In my work, collections of people, or groups of individual images, shown as a series, reflect the way that each individual relates to another to form a group or a "community." By bringing a group of individuals together, one begins to compare and contrast each individual, but at the same time is still able to see them as a whole. Although I am addressing social conditions, the idea of each personality figures into the perception of the work. The manipulated heads, hands, and bodies of the individuals reflect the idiosyncrasies of each subject allowing the viewer to isolate subtle differences between them. In the end what exists is a community of individuals rich with cultural associations and individual characteristics. My work is derived from the reconstruction of several photographs into an expressive whole. By reassembling individual photographs into a single piece, a statement about my own sensibiities as an artist comes through and the result is a taxonomy or set of people that has personal meaning to me. By looking at the set of individuals the viewers can make their own associations and leave with their own conclusions. These conclusions will be different according to each background and experience that the viewer has, and I assume will often be different than mine.

Description

Rights Access

Subject

Etching -- Technique
Computer art -- Technique

Citation

Associated Publications