Description: A man is seated on a chair or stool, bent forward slightly with his hands on his knees; his body is naked except for a pair of underpants and covered with blue and red tattoos except for his hands, neck, and face; he wears a ring on his left ring finger.
Label Text: In a journal from 1978, Beth Van Hoesen wrote about her process: “I draw directly from life . . . I care about the individuality of each leaf or hair—and I must feel it directly, personally, and immediately . . . In working with intaglio I choose subject matter that feels like the type of line.” For this image of a neatly-groomed tattoo collector, Van Hoesen chooses etching, a technique for cutting lines into a printing plate not unlike those for tattooing skin. While Van Hoesen rarely makes personal statements with her subjects, this man’s tattoos are all highly symbolic, combining astrological signs, images of wild animals, and scenes from classical mythology.
-Jaime Pagana, Curatorial Assistant, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum (Sept. 2016)
Tags: prints; abstract; portraits; tattoos Link to share this object record: https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=MH+2012.16.8 |