Brides

A series of woodblock prints, which use the white of bare paper—the negative space of the woodblock—to create their primary figure ground.

Titled Brides, this series of woodblock prints uses figures taken from the pages of bridal magazines. In each image, a bridal figure—simplified into a silhouette—is pictured right side up and again upside-down. From these iconic bridal figures and their enigmatic shadows emerge complex shapes and abstracted objects: Rorschach inkblots, islands, ghosts, phalluses, nuns, and swans. The bride figures become decorative, object-like, serial, and as mute as the white of the paper. Indeed the primary white figure of each print is created from the white of bare paper, the negative space of the woodblock.

My interest in the bride symbol is driven by contemporary culture's broad objectification of brides and by the reverence of this very same objectification. The work engages the topics of beauty, femininity, objectification, and cultural expectation, as well as struggles of personal identity.

Publisher: Center Street Studio