Printmaking beyond the expanded field: Aura of practice as matrix

Abstract

The article concerns the transmedial qualities of printmaking that will be revealed with theory retrieved from the field of major mediums such as painting and sculpture and applied with a focus on the key concepts of the artist's practice as the printmaking matrix. The matrix is the mould used to cast an image, such as the copper plate, woodblock, or lithography stone. Due to the expanding heterogeneous term of printmaking, this article is limited to what can be considered analogue or hard copy printmaking (e.g., intaglio, relief, litho), as well as its collective tools and materials (e.g., inks, plates, roller, press, acid) which can be found in a printmaking studio. The notion of aura is drawn from Walter Benjamin’s concept but is used in a dialectical sense to emphasise the immaterial dimension of the artist’s practice which correlate with(in) the matrix.