Artwork description:

This is an artist map that represents a small area that has since changed from a rural countryside to a populated urban area. Growing up here I have witnessed some of its transformation. The title Palimpsest comes from the days when parchment skin was used for writing. These skins where precious and so often the words would be scraped off and reused. However the remnants of the marks made previously would remain. Later this term was used by architects the idea being that no matter what is changed there is always remnants or a history of past use. This work is one of three images that embodies this idea. After printing 5 editions the copper plate was scraped and burnished and re-grounded with wax. I then incorporated the new houses and roads and etched the plate again. After printing a further 5 editions the copper plate was re-grounded and etched a third time adding a motorway and more housing. The two images not shown here are called Palimpsest II and III.

The method used was Etching with hard ground on a copper plate.

Materials used:

Oil-based printing ink on Somerset Satin paper

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