Jonas Ropponen – Full, Empty

Linocut
Edition of 30
Image size: 65.5. cm
Paper size: 73 x 52.5 cm
PCA Print Commission 2019

‘Full, Empty’ is a contemplation of paradox. On one hand it plays with a familiar cliché of ‘glass half full/half empty’ but is also arises from the making process of relief printmaking in which matter is removed from a block to form an image. In a relief print the white areas are removed from a mirror image of the end result, unlike common drawing practice in which darker pigments are usually applied to white paper. In the image I centred a symmetrical form, and looking closer at the dandelions there is a mirroring of forms on the left and right of the image. These flowers and seedbeds are in their own process of ‘filling and emptying’ as is the cup with its contents in suspension. The cup references the Ace of Cups from the Tarot.