Jean Gumpper

Artist Statement

In my work as an artist and printmaker, I respond to landscape as a metaphor for emotions and experiences. Being alone in nature helps me to listen to my intuition and to have the patience necessary to really see. I seek to integrate the memories, sounds and feelings of being in the landscape into the making of the print. The carving of the woodblock and the layering of the ink, for me, echo natural processes such as the layering of leaves, water, trees and light. Each color is mixed carefully and applied in a series of transparent and opaque overlapping layers through a reduction woodcut process and gradually, the layers build up into a completed image. Making the print is a way to relive an experience and to share it with others.

Biography

Jean Gumpper was born in Hawaii, grew up in Michigan and now lives in Chipita Park, Colorado, with her husband, Stephen Flynn and their son, Andrew. Jean is currently a Visiting Associate Professor at the Colorado College. Her prints are in the collections of Colorado College, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center; Cranbrook Institute of Arts, Bloomfield Hills, MI; Rocky Mountain National Park; Springfield Art Museum, MO; University of Pittsburgh, PA: University of Wisconsin, Madison; as well as private and corporate collections in the United States, Canada, Japan, Nepal and Sweden. In 2008, she has had solo exhibitions in Seattle and Denver and a two-person exhibition at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Jean received a Visual Artist Fellowship award from the Colorado Council on the Arts in 2000 and she participated as an artist in residence at the Ucross Foundation in 2001 and at Rocky Mountain National Park in 1998.

Reduction Woodcut and Pochoir

In the reduction woodcut process, the image is printed from a flat surface of birch plywood that has been rolled up in ink. The areas meant to be un-inked are cut away and the image is left in relief. Paper is placed on the block, both are run through a press with pressure and the ink is transferred to the paper. The print develops in layers. I use a single piece of wood and first draw out the image. Using woodcutting tools, I cut away the areas to remain the color of the paper. The first color is printed and each piece of paper is carefully registered on the block before it is run it though the press. After all of the pieces of paper in the edition (plus a couple more for mistakes) are printed with the first color, the block is cleaned off and I cut out everything to be the color just printed. The second color is then rolled out and printed onto the paper. This process of cutting and printing is repeated until the print is completed. I usually print small editions of 12 -15 prints each. Many of these prints also include pochoir, a process where gouache paint is applied through a stencil. Using pochoir allows me to use specific localized color as well as gradated color and value.

Prints

Small Prints

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