Impressions of Rome, 2022
The project Impressions of Rome: An Investigation into Material Culture and Weathering explored printmaking and casting as site-specific media that, from an artistic perspective, highlight the architectural potential of patination and weathering in materials. The aim was to investigate how our relationship to history, time, and nature can be understood through architecture.
The impressions were an attempt to capture the tactile qualities and embedded narratives of the urban environment.
The project was carried out in November 2022 in collaboration with architect Rosa Prichard at the Danish Institute in Rome.
Rome is a city of ruins and layers which has captured the imagination of architects, artists and writers for centuries. The city has been built and rebuilt over millennia, and this history is palpable as you walk its streets. The worn roman brick of a relic from antiquity; the scratch mark of a Renaissance passer-by engraving their name, still present in the rustication of a Palazzo; the peeling paint on the facade of an ordinary residential block.
We were interested in how polychromy is used in Roman sculpture to show depth, and the deep-red colour which is used to show text engraved into stone. We tried to use this technique on our own printing plates.
Our working table at The Danish Institute in Rome, with casts, prints and paper tests. Graphic printing ink on Japanese paper, silicone, and plaster, approximately 20 × 30 cm, 2022
Images of the cast-taking process. A series of impressions taken along Via Della Quattro Fontane - an axis which slices through the centre of Rome, providing a cross-section of the monumental and the mundane.
Pictures of our silicone- and plaster castings, which was used as printing plates
Prints from the process. Graphic printing ink on Japanese paper, approximately 20 × 30 cm, 2022
