The poet Marianne Moore wrote in ‘What Are The Years?”
“What is our innocence,
What is our guilt?
All are naked,
None is safe”
I think of these words often when I enter my studio to work. I am deeply affected by the state of human rights in the world and use my work to comment on the destruction and inhumanity we see everyday through contemporary media. I appreciate that to date, I have been kept personally safe from the violence that has permeated others lives and feel strongly that my work should bear witness to current events. I address difficult and disgraceful subjects such as the genocide in Rwanda, the massacres in America on September 11th, and the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners by the US government, through my drawings, prints and mixed media work. My work speaks as a testimony of my rage and empathy about our troubled times.
I use complex image layering, color combinations, and patterning in my work which are inspired in part by textiles from all sorts of cultures; African, Oriental, Eastern European and American Quilts. I also like to exploit more historic artforms such as prayer rugs and reliquaries as formats for discussing current events. I thrive on the range of processes in the printmaking medium as it allows me to combine both traditional techniques (intaglio, woodcut, linoleum block, stamp printing) with newer techniques (digital printing and the Image-on process). It is the layering and collaging together of various printed parts that give my work its distinctive physical presence beyond the usual, flat, printed paper.
BRIDGET STEWART