Natural Responses

Our practice revolves around various printmaking processes, and the materials and subjects are equally as likely to determine the techniques. Having worked together as monitors at the University of Guelph printmaking studio, we were very familiar with each other’s interests and bodies of work. Outside of the studio, we have taken many walks in the arboretum, pointing out our favourite vignettes, trees and textures as part of the experience. By sharing our separate inspirations, we recognized our shared focus on abstracted elements of nature, so we were eager to collaborate!

Our ongoing collaboration process begins with each of us creating base layers separately to trade. We then respond to each other’s prints with a second layer. There is an element of play and curiosity because the first layer we will be printing on is not known until we trade. These experimental works are made up of various processes including linocut, screen printing, cyanotypes, monotypes, and drypoint, with additional embossments and materials for supplemental texture. Taking turns when applying each layer encourages us to investigate how such processes work together. Questions of process, order, and consequence add tension to the project.

Abby has been creating cyanotypes using found materials from nature to create compositions that explore opacity and transparency. In this edition, she also created botanical monoprints. The variation in these prints makes them a perfect canvas for experimenting with other printmaking processes. Andrea’s base layers typically sample printmaking processes including intaglio, screen printing and linocut. Though varying in subject matter, her prints feature organic forms ranging from referential to abstract. Graphic botanical linocut motifs were the focus for this edition. The challenge for the second layers is to add to the composition while maintaining our own style and material processes. Responding to each other’s work has been a process of creative and self exploration that we will continue in our collaborative practice.

Andrea McCallum is a Guelph based artist working in printmaking, sculpture and digital media. Creating work through processes in sculpture and printmaking, Andrea enters the metaphysical space between the biological and cosmological by engaging with intuition.She creates organic abstract forms and compositions that feel familiar and yet unrecognizable. Her healing and artistic practices overlap for some projects, allowing experiences of the subtle senses a physical embodiment.

Abby Lichti is an interdisciplinary artist, based in the Region of Waterloo. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and Psychology through the University of Guelph. Her work and process often includes printmaking, drawing, and photographic references, with a soft spot for textiles. She finds inspiration in private everyday life encounters, through nature, domesticity, and photographic references intuitively captured throughout her day, that translate to collective human emotions and experiences.