St. Anthony's Swine Plays Dress-up
Method: Push engraving, etching, drypoint, aquatint, sanding and grinding, scraping
Matrix: Recycled, custom cut zinc plate
Printing Ink: Gamblin Bone Black Etching Ink
Paper: Hahnemuhle Copperplate Warm White
Hand Coloring Ink: Water-based ink
Size: 4" x 7.25"
Year: 2022
Description: St. Anthony the Abbot became the patron saint of swineherds due to his relationship with a pig who kept him attuned to the hours of the day for his prayers. He is most frequently represented as accompanied by a pig. I found humor in thinking what if his pig dressed up in his clothes. Conceptual and visual inspiration came from medieval illuminated manuscripts, The Bible, Christianity, and alter pieces. This plate is a recycled zinc plate from my undergraduate studies. It was ground, scraped, sanded, and burnished to remove most of the original etching marks, but some remained and blend with the new engraved markings. One goal was to simulate the looseness and back and forth of mark making with a pencil on paper and then erasing repeatably. This can be challenging with engraving, as once the mark is made, it must be scraped out of the metal to erase it, then new marks carved in. These heavily worked plates with marks that are both measured and chaotic, represent my inner demons, questions, and confusion around religious topics and themes.
custom cut, recycled zinc plate
original sketch