Untitled I and II

Artist name

Artist year born

1935

Artwork make date

1997

Artwork material

woodcut
fabric

Artwork dimensions

height: 187cm
width: 55cm
height: 187cm
width: 55cm

Artwork type (categories)

Print

Accession method

Donated by Maria Bonomi 1999

Accession number

1-1999

Label text

Active as a printmaker since the 1950s, Maria Bonomi has consistently explored connections between the two dimensions of woodcut printing: the carved block and the printed image. In the 1970s this path of investigation led to the development of three-dimensional work: selecting lines and textures from the woodblock itself, she transposed them into sculptural objects and expansive surfaces of concrete and metal.

These two banners reveal the play between texture and image that has become a constant motif of Bonomi's visual language. Ordered into a grid, the carefully selected fragments of woodcut texture appear, very convincingly, to be figurative or pictographic. Since developing sculptural work in the seventies Bonomi has sought to diffuse her images across varying media, a mode of formal experimentation that is driven by a committed interest in the wider dissemination of printmaking. Bonomi prefers to work in large dimensions and with accessible media; these two banners fulfil both criteria, while exploring the effect of transposing woodcut print on to a fluid fabric surface.

Isobel Whitelegg

Last updated date

2008