MARIA KEANE

Many of my prints (monoprints) are the result of intensive first impressions; others use a matrix. The latter method enables me to explore the subject matter again and again in series. Both approaches enable the printmaker to grasp the organic integrity of the subject. Painting is critical to the process of the monoprint as are art and design. The success of woodcuts is dependent upon a personalization of the carving and its translation to one or more plates. I maintain a creative interdependence with the printmaking process: the preparation of the plate, the paper and the pulling of the print off the press. The result is always descriptive of the mirror's eye, (a reverse image inherent of the printmaking process.) Printmaking is a solitary aesthetic experience in which the process never lies. When the print is pulled I know whether my subject speaks to me...and others. Then I am able to share intimacies of the process through the visual participation of others beyond the mirror's eye.