TOM HARPER

Jennifer Bornstein’s exhibition at Gavin Brown gallery (2014), in which she inked up and rubbed the whole floor of the gallery and then presented those imprints on the wall, is an inspiring reminder of the power of rubbing and printmaking practice. The newly presented floor, like some monumental ghostly visage of the traces of past histories, inverts the roles of space producing a sense of disorientation and the uncanny that borders on the sublime. In a similar vein to her work, I am very interested in producing large scale rubbings and working with inked surfaces, the immense dedication to the surface, also attempting to produce a sense of awe and the uncanny sublime in the void spaces of everyday. Her work allows me to think about the possibilities of ever greater complexity and scale.

Camera, 2014, Wax rubbing on paper, 48.3 × 32.4 cm

Her later works, which are more “corporeal and emotionally” motivated (Pesenti et al., p.23 ) are also of great interest to my practice. The artist made wax rubbings of her late father’s belongings, using the practice of rubbing to process grief and create a memorial to that feeling of loss. On the one hand this is a highly expressive and meaningful way to use rubbing to impart intense and touching feelings to the viewer. It is a lesson in expressive use of a subject that works so aptly with the ephemeral and ghostly nature of rubbings. On the other hand, the artist is also dually talking more about the conceptual underpinnings of the medium itself and this is also something I am very interested in. Her choice of subject, a camera, is a tool of observation that  flattens the world in front us, much like the process of rubbing and printing creates imprints of objects and space. The direction of the lens is also an interesting choice, as it acts almost in an anthropological way, staring back at the viewer as we behold it. This feels like no accident but bringing up the idea of voyeurism and the subject staring back at the audience, questioning the distance between viewer and what is being viewed. It feels more alive, like it has its own personality and vision. 

The rubbings that I have taken of the printing press, involving rubbing and printing the printing press, itself, has many similarities in theme to her work with the camera. Printing the object that flattens is an ironic and ingenious nod to the object’s original function and I wish to make more works that also can illicit that sense of ingenuity and inventiveness from my audience. 

I have plans to make to make rubbings of my old overalls and other weathered equipment used in my practice for rubbings and castings. I wish to be able to get that emotional response from my subject matter as she does. 

© 2022 By Tom Harper