May 30, 20203 min read

HELLO NEIGHBOR - WASH DRY / CUT PASTE

title: WASH DRY / CUT PASTE artist: Victoria Marie Barquin materials: Collage of prints and drawings on paper dimensions: Each collage measures 31 x 21 inches location: 2523 N Fairfield Ave Apt 1 (Ground Floor), Chicago Illinois, USA

WASH DRY / CUT PASTE consists of four shaped works on paper, each one assigned to an individual windowpane. After a long winter being sealed with plastic, our windows are now able to open and close once again. Depending on weather and time of day, the shapes will interact as the windows slide up and down. This repeated shape was originally inspired by a laundry service advertisement featuring a collared shirt floating in the wind. As a printmaker, repetition and layering are important to my practice. While clothes are washed and worn multiple times, so are the images found in my prints. For this project, I have chosen to cannibalize my multiples, using editioned images and rejected drawings to create unique pieces that originate from duplicates. While sheltering in place and experiencing a loss of income, I’ve been creating new pieces from materials I already have. Although printmaking is my main medium, I have turned to collage as a way to utilize the drawers full of repeated imagery that live in my studio. With piles of old work lying in front of me, I cut out a shape that I worked with in a recent print. This shape is now a consistent, central element in a series of collages that I’m working on. For my Hello Neighbor installation, I used this shape to create the exterior dimensions of these larger works on paper.

WASH DRY / CUT PASTE by Victoria Marie Barquin (click arrow for more images)

Victoria Marie Barquin is a Chicago-based artist, printmaker, and arts administrator. Highlighting the intersection of text, image and architecture, Barquin’s work honors the deep connection between human beings and the built environment. She uses digital brushes and halftone dots to build sketches of her prints in Photoshop before physically producing them via screenprinting—a medium with a long history of interacting with walls and public spaces. Barquin received a BFA in Printmaking from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2016. Upon graduation, she received the Genevieve McMillan-Reba Stewart Traveling Fellowship, funding her residency at the Can Serrat International Art Centre. In addition to her personal studio practice, Barquin runs a collaborative publishing program called Halftone Projects. Operating out of her second bedroom turned screenprinting studio, Halftone Projects is still able to accept commissioned screenprinting work while adhering to the shelter-in-place orders. If you have a project in mind, email halftoneprojects@gmail.com with a description and Victoria will get back to you as soon as possible. Follow her on Instagram: @vic_barq @halftoneprojects

More on Victoria Marie Barquin's practice

Highlighting the intersection of text, image and architecture, my work honors the deep connection between human beings and the built environment. I am particularly intrigued by the words scribbled and planned out on the sides and fronts and backs of buildings, which I document through photography. These images become the foundation for my print work, a first layer. Using digital brushes and halftone dots, I build sketches of my prints in Photoshop before physically producing them via screenprinting—a medium with a long history of interacting with walls and public spaces. Occasionally, I use other processes such as lithography, monotype, collage and spray paint to impart the hand drawn mark. Whether analog or digital, I intend for my work to read as a gestural abstraction of the built environment, where city streets are stratified by artists and passerby. When the appearance of something has been impaired, disfigured, or altered, who takes ownership? I am interested in issues of authenticity and plagiarism; specifically, how they relate to printmaking and digitalization, methods with innate ties to reproduction.