A French artist born in 1925 whose paintings and etchings I admire is James Coignard. He dealt with extremely tactile surfaces and the use of some graffiti. The structure of his 1980’s paintings in which he used squares or rectangles to draw the viewer into the artwork had much influence on the structure of my own monoprints.

My Arborglyph images are also ‘squares’ laid upon a background surface and they tend to float on the surface of the print. Many people have commented that the Arborglyph squares in my monoprints look 3-dimensional, or like floating windows. The window effect is very significant in James Coignard’s paintings and prints as well.

Coignard was coined for doing carborundum etchings, as was Antonio Tapies, Pierre Marie Brisson, and Miro. Carborundum etching was ‘invented’ by Goetz in the 1960’s. It’s a process where silicon carbide (an abrasive grit). is applied to printing plates to create tone and dense areas of black . It actually is the ‘reverse of etching’, because it builds UP the plate instead of the plate being incised. The process can create a very textural quality.

I was recently interviewed on www.blogtalkradio.com/annette-coleman in the Artist name names, what artists inspire their work episode. Coignard and Antonio Tapies were two favorite artists I mentioned.