Rob Swainston: "They Said What We Said" (2016)

If you were lucky enough to catch the mind bending woodblock prints by Rob Swainston at the University Galleries this month, your eyes were probably drawn to his "They Said What We Said" prints. The four pieces focus on the line between historic and contemporary art. Rob Swainston was born and raised in Pennsylvania and is founder and master printer at Prints of Darkness, a collaborative print shop in NYC. The prints are some of his most recent works made in 2016. Most recently the pieces were being shown at the University Galleries in Normal, IL from May 21st until September 11th 2016. The four pieces are a collection of woodblock prints on fabric with aluminum stretchers and fluorescent lights, with each piece measuring 126 x 54 x 10 inches.

Mind bending was almost the perfect term to describe Swainston’s work. Almost as if the waves of the oceans confuse your wandering eyes as they glide from the first piece ever so smoothly to the fourth. The use of the fluorescent lights and the texture of the fabric give off a three dimensional feel to it almost as if it is coming alive. The light bounces off each stacked print in a wavy pattern giving it the illusion that it is floating off of the frame. Swaiston wrestles with the earliest print form from the 2nd century and the dark undecipherable imagery that leaches on the viewer's soul. As uneasy as these prints may make the casual contemporary art consumer feel there is almost a clear image throughout the black and white illusions.

Three aluminum frames hold three layers of fabric on top of one another while being backlit by fluorescent lighting. The light is a pure light almost piercing the eyes through the very abysmal black that is the print. This set up creates a texture almost too similar to a mirage in the desert. As the light bounces through the layers of fabric and the viewer walks left to right there is almost a black wave produced that flows across the pieces bringing satisfaction only a dehydrated traveler can get from a desert mirage of a glass of cool crisp water. The motion of the viewers eyes and head moving in all directions trying to make a solid image out of this collage of black and white create a rhythm with the pattern of these mysterious black waves. Somehow a faint image of teeth and an eye pop out of the nothingness and then it cannot be unseen. All of this chaos is almost a perfect balance of imperfectness stemming from the fact that this is almost a three dimensional piece with the aspects of the frames, the multiple pieces and light fixtures clearly shown behind the works of art. All of these elements and principles create these dark holographic illusions that is a perfect connection between the historic print technique and the contemporary idea that comes with society today.