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Martin Blundell Artist Statement During my study at the University of Utah I began to develop a tendency to create drawings and prints that included multiple images. Most or the images were composed of common, almost benign objects, including chairs, furniture, windows, interior spaces, and domestic objects. The art that evolved was naturally autobiographical. Those things that were the most accessible became subject matter and a vehicle for exploration and experimentation. The inherent characteristics of the various mediums supplied constraint and limitations but also direction for art making. Drawings naturally lead to intaglio prints. I experimented with traditional and non-traditional methods of creating marks, textures, value gradations, and image building on zinc etching plates. The working, scraping back, etching, lithotine and asphaltum washes, modified and redrawn helped develop rich textured surfaces and impressions that were achievable in no other way. The process of making an etching plate became as important as the print; a journey of experimentation, applying knowledge, primarily directed by intuition. I began to use etching plates and other textures as templates for rubbings, transferring textures to drawings by scribbling with a pencil or graphite sticks. The plate making process when applied to drawings helped develop richer textures and unique images. The addition of aqueous mediums including roofer's graphite mixed with water and alcohol as a carrying agent replicated the washes that I was experimenting with on etching plates. The experimentation in drawing, the combination of various techniques and collaged elements lead to unique drawings beyond studies and sketches or drawings developed by traditional techniques. Many things matter in art making; draughtsman ship, composition, invention, experimentation, knowledge, and intuition. Intuition is valuable especially in making collage images. The selection of images, fragments, multiple layering of objects, meanings and composition, intuition determines the outcome. Robert Motherwell has written about starting abstract paintings and how they progress. He stated that he made a mark on the canvas, studied the results, and then made another mark in relationship to the first. He proceeded from the beginning not knowing where it would lead him. For me the collage process is similar. It is impossible to know the end before you start, or in the middle of your work. Selecting images of objects and then adding or subtracting from the assemblage in order to create harmony or juxtaposition, coalesce to arrive at an interesting, aesthetic work. The ambiguity that is developed by the collection of multiple images is important for the art and equally important for the viewer. In a sense the viewer also participates in an autobiographical way, observing and interacting with the art through personal lenses or prisms of experience and understanding. In more recent works on paper and paintings I have explored similar techniques that 1 used in printmaking. The practice of collage is perhaps more fluid in drawings that are pieced together. Many of the drawings come from different times, made years apart from each other. Some are the combination of old preliminary drawings and studies, sketches; thumbnails etc., with more finished or completed drawings and passages. Handwriting and numerical sequences began to appear as textures and references time, order, and place.