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    (CITATION Wei03 /L 1033) Kiki Smith

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    MuzammilHussain
    Kiki Smith is an American artist born in 1954 in Germany to American sculptor Tony Smith and a German opera singer. She was exposed to art from a young age, helping her father with sculptures. Some of her most notable prints discussed in the document include "The Light of the World", which uses a hybrid etching and cyanotype process with blue and white colors depicting celestial bodies. "Sueño" depicts an anonymous curled up figure using intricate black ink lines on a white background, conveying feelings of loneliness. "My Blue Lake" uses photographic and printmaking techniques to depict the female form in relation to landscape, blurring the line between body and world. "Melancholia" is part of Smith's "Blue

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    (CITATION Wei03 /L 1033) Kiki Smith

    Uploaded by

    MuzammilHussain
    82 views5 pages
    Kiki Smith is an American artist born in 1954 in Germany to American sculptor Tony Smith and a German opera singer. She was exposed to art from a young age, helping her father with sculptures. Some of her most notable prints discussed in the document include "The Light of the World", which uses a hybrid etching and cyanotype process with blue and white colors depicting celestial bodies. "Sueño" depicts an anonymous curled up figure using intricate black ink lines on a white background, conveying feelings of loneliness. "My Blue Lake" uses photographic and printmaking techniques to depict the female form in relation to landscape, blurring the line between body and world. "Melancholia" is part of Smith's "Blue

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    Kiki Smith is an American artist born in 1954 in Germany to American sculptor Tony Smith and a German opera singer. She was exposed to art from a young age, helping her father with sculptures. Some of her most notable prints discussed in the document include "The Light of the World", which uses a hybrid etching and cyanotype process with blue and white colors depicting celestial bodies. "Sueño" depicts an anonymous curled up figure using intricate black ink lines on a white background, conveying feelings of loneliness. "My Blue Lake" uses photographic and printmaking techniques to depict the female form in relation to landscape, blurring the line between body and world. "Melancholia" is part of Smith's "Blue

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    82 views5 pages

    (CITATION Wei03 /L 1033) Kiki Smith

    Uploaded by

    MuzammilHussain
    Kiki Smith is an American artist born in 1954 in Germany to American sculptor Tony Smith and a German opera singer. She was exposed to art from a young age, helping her father with sculptures. Some of her most notable prints discussed in the document include "The Light of the World", which uses a hybrid etching and cyanotype process with blue and white colors depicting celestial bodies. "Sueño" depicts an anonymous curled up figure using intricate black ink lines on a white background, conveying feelings of loneliness. "My Blue Lake" uses photographic and printmaking techniques to depict the female form in relation to landscape, blurring the line between body and world. "Melancholia" is part of Smith's "Blue

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 5

    Kiki smith

    Introduction

    Born in 1954 in Nuremberg Germany. Her father tony smith was an American sculptor. At the

    time of her birth her mother was in Germany who also was an artist and performed opera.

    After the birth of Kiki her parent brought her back to New jersey. Where she was brought up.

    Kiki was introduced to art since her early age she began to help her father in the production of

    cardboard model for his geometric models. She followed catholic church these factors had an

    expression in her works when she started her career as an artist.

    Since the earliest days of her career in 1970’s she was much interested in making prints she

    stated from making monotypes with the help of a friend’s etching press. She had been making

    screen prints on paper and fabric. And after 1990 print make became more frequent in her

    work and got as much attention as sculpture. 1 She had often said, “I could just make prints and

    be satisfied.”2 , however Kiki smith used a vast range of materials and her works are focused

    upon life and spirituality. Our main topic of discussion is for extensive and nice print pieces by

    the artist.

    The light of the world 

    Light of the world is beautiful yet meaningful print by the artist. It has been created by making

    multiple plate and layering them over each other in different orders. This work reflects a hybrid

    process of etching and cyanotype.

    1
    [ CITATION Wei03 \l 1033 ]
    2
    Kiki smith
    As the artist described: “I etched into Plexiglas plates with a needle and used the plates as

    contact prints, exposing the image in a photographic process onto the chemically coated Losin

    paper, thereby making a marriage between two forms. the light of the world was created by

    making multiple plates and layering them on top of one another in various orders. Moments of

    clarity and moments of the image being soft or out of focus occur, depending on how far the

    image was from the paper during its exposure. “3

    The color vocabulary is minimal which is comprised of only two colors blue and white. The

    selection of colors is an expression of blue sky and white light inspired from nature. The fine

    straight lines perfectly depict the light of stars. It depicts the clusters of solar bodies in varying

    sizes and configurations with texture of a print having a visual texture.

    Sueño 

    Sueno by Kiki is a two-color intaglio print of a life size human figure crumbled into himself. The

    pose is similar to a fetal position. It is depicted in the center of a Japanese paper sheet. The

    gender of the figure can not be described although artist herself posed for it and her assistants

    traced her. If we look at the print it is composed of two basic element the human figure and a

    large negative blank space around it which gives an expression of loneliness or unease of the

    figure as looking at figure its color it pose are extremely vulnerable and transfer an impression

    of the depression of figure.

    The figure is curled in a strange manner and up some extent it looks like an illusion. The back is

    curved slightly upward legs directed to upward hand stretched around his head in a way that

    the don’t hide the hairless skull which is facing ground. The musculoskeletal system of the
    3
    Museum of modern arts.
    figure is exposed through thousands of black ink lines. The outer skin is drawn through a single

    light and thin line placed around the figure at a distance it resembles an x ray image. In spite of

    such intricate detailing the figure is completely anonymous and gender neutral, and convey the

    messages and evolve a feeling of loneliness or pain in the viewer’s mind.

    My blue lake

    it is a hand colored photogravure and lithograph produced in 1995. it depicts a female face and

    topographical features. This piece is a part of a series of works produced during 90’s aimed to

    change the ways of depiction of female body. The process of production is very unique it

    combines the world and her body by using a camera which is designed to produce geological

    maps. The figure is depicted in way similar to the terrain as it depicts the center point perfectly

    but the object far apart is distorted.

    The three-dimensional figure is translated in to a two-dimensional picture. The artist used the

    printmaking technique of dry point using red to color her hair. Although most of the image is

    unclear at first sight but the face is still significant and clear conveying a message of the

    importance of face and other body in world around it. My blue lake is a metaphor just as the

    camera was in a uniform state of movement similarly a human body is in a process of change

    and it changes by the passage of every day. the artist then made all the copies of the print by

    hand as she described it as a reminder of the birth and as human being the prints were similar

    to their sibling yet different from each other a metaphor for mankind were so much similar to

    each other but much different. 4

    4
    Kiki smith.
    Melancholia

    Kiki smith has depicted abundantly the female figure and has depicted the feminist figure in

    creative expressive and unique ways. Melancholia is depiction of a girl in a fairytale manner.

    This piece is a part of a series named blue which comprised of fifteen etchings. The series

    expressed different characters from religion fiction or mythology.

    The print is composed of a girl with wings sitting in a relaxed position and apparently worried or

    sad facial expressions. The image is kind of reproduction of a similar work from Albrecht Durer

    with a same title and taking main objects from Durer’s work which are the girl with wings and a

    polyhedron. the intangible element of the image is it feeling of melancholy. The background of

    the image is filled with linear and abundant number of lines which increase the conceptual or

    fictious effect of print.

    Bibliography

     Smith, Kiki. "Kiki Smith Art, Bio, Ideas". The Art Story, 2020,

    https://www.theartstory.org/artist/smith-kiki/.
     "Kiki Smith And the Pursuit Of Beauty In A Notably Unbeautiful Age". Nytimes.Com, 2020,

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/t-magazine/kiki-smith-artist-profile.html.

     weitman, wendy. Experiences With Printmaking; Kiki Smith Expands The Tradition.. Museum Of

    Modern Arts., 2003.

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