Over the last six years I have been creating a suite of ultraviolet screen prints based on the iconic National Geographic magazine. Screen printing is a contemporary printmaking medium in which ink is pushed through a very fine mesh, stretched on a rigid frame, onto a piece of paper. Images are created by establishing stencils on that mesh. The stencil allows ink to pass through some areas of the screen but not others. I make use of extremely detailed, digitally produced photographic stencils that are photographically exposed onto my screens. I also use ultraviolet cured inks that dry only when they are baked by intense ultraviolet light. This ink allows me to print extremely detailed without fear of losing any that detail because the inks are drying and clogging up the stencil during the printing process. My prints are typically made of twenty-five to forty layers of color/tone each prepared as a separate stencil on a separate screen. Each print in this series is titled with a reference to the prophetic sixteenth-century seer Nostradamus. In the random collection of titles, words, and images I have found a hint of prophecy or the retelling of the recent history of the world. In this information age we have all been conditioned to absorb and respond to ever-increasing quantities of sensory information. Whether we are walking down a street, listening to a radio, surfing through television channels, or reading a magazine like National Geographic, each of us will be drawn to specific for individual and personal reasons. It has become my habit to respond to the that draw my attention and juxtapose a number of the disparate visual/conceptual elements in order to create narrative-like dialogues in which individual meanings become secondary to new, personally and individually constructed content. In this way, the intent of my work is to create new and imaginary spaces for viewers. National Geographic magazines, and affiliated publications like the Canadian Geographic magazine, provide many art students and practicing artists with an endless supply of imagery. Drawing, printmaking, painting, and digital-art studios are generally littered with these kinds of publications. Their iconic, bright yellow--framed covers and compactly texted spines end up ripped and battered from people flipping through them as they search for topical imagery and colorful to appropriate and collage into other work. The entirely ubiquitous and utterly taken-for-granted nature of the National Geographic magazine appeals to me, and I am using it as a familiar stage on which I can generate new forms of discussion/interpretation. Inspired by the Dada artists and poets of the early twentieth century as well as the absurdist playwrights of the 1940s, 1950s, and 196os, I initially employ systems of chance to bring two or more visual elements together. Words and images/ideas that wouldn't normally be connected are brought together with the familiar form of the magazine for their provocative and evocative potential. Like the absurdist playwrights, I tend to think that life is arbitrary and illogical, and I cultivate confrontations with the unexpected not only to prompt new and unforeseen ideas but also as a reflection of my own personal outlook on the world. Obviously, it would be impossible to bring any two or more things together without having them play off one another; but I believe it is my responsibility as an artist to exert some selectivity about what works for me and what might generate a multitude of different interpretations for a viewer. …
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Jan 1, 2014
Christine Schreyer 
Open Access