Square Optics: Flossy Ed. 1 of 1

Framed in Victorian Ash. Please send an enquiry if you would like to purchase the print unframed.

This print is part of series of 40 Aquatint etching made during a Scholarship at the Australian Print Workshop, Melbourne, VIC in 2019.

The inspiration behind this body of work is mostly process based as it unfolded while learning the 17th century technique of Rosin Aquatint Etching.

There is a lot to be said for the simple square, it is one of the single most common shapes we see on a daily basis. In the urban environment it is the foundation. Each work is complex and nuanced in its simplicity of form, and the colour combinations tend to vibrate off the page into the third dimension.

This work pushes the boundaries of printmaking by going beyond the traditional figurative narrative and gives a moment to reflect on blocked colour and form .

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Jessie Balletta graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art in 2018 from RMIT University. She specialises in printmaking and has a keen interest in copper plate etching. Jessie has over a decade of experience within the arts featuring in a number of group exhibitions across Australia. Her work is held in both private and public collections nationwide.

Employing traditional etching techniques, such as rosin aquatint, the artist uses a square motif in blocked and tonal colour variations to explore the power of repetition.

Repetition becomes meditation, meditation becomes ritual. The etching process and colour fields become private spaces for contemplation. Wassily Kandinsky observed, “Colour provokes a psychic vibration. Colour hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.”

Square Optics is stripped back to its essential elements of colour and geometric form where no figurative narrative exists, allowing the viewer to project their own meaning.

While predominantly working within a print-based practice her studio experimentation and ideas surrounding the soul and the inner-self expand into drawing and painting.

Jessie currently lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne.