Potential, 2010, Screen Print

I made this print in the first year of my Masters of Fine Art, back in late 2010, and was focused in at the time on chance and randomness in the process of making art works. I made the print thinking about randomness by responding to the properties of the material. I started with a string of knotted rubber bands, which I placed onto the glass of a screen-printing exposure unit. Working with the material rather than being in control of it I positioned the rubber bands to make a composition. The bands resisted composition through their innate springy properties, fighting against being precisely positioned and composed on the exposure unit. Once the screen went down on top of the composition and the lid of the exposure unit was closed the composition change again, as the bands flattened out under the pressure. So, I didn’t now what the image was going to look like until I had washed out the screen with water revealing the final stencil. Part of the reason I chose rubber bands was because of their built-in energy. When you see one in its resting-state you recognise its potential energy instantly, I wanted the print to absorb some of that energy.