On the plate I apply any combination of hard, soft or lift ground, Sharpie marker or photocopy transfer to create the image of an insect. In my printmaking I experiment with new techniques in the copper plate etching process, combining varied and unconventional ‘ground’ (acid resits) rendering methods. Blown up microscopically, they become abstract art: when a butterfly wing is enlarged a thousand times, it has the appearance of a myriad of brush strokes, resembling the beauty of a stained glass window. They bite and sting, are banished from our homes and are viewed primarily as pests. Western culture for the most part ignores them and mainly treats them with disdain. Without parental guidance, they are natural born engineers, alchemists and masters of camouflage, as their skills are hardwired in. Yet their societies are of a highly ordered complexity. They are stripped down to the most basic state of existence and perceive the world on a chemical level. With their armour, stiff joints, and antennae, they have adapted and survived for millennia. They are nature’s perfect hydraulic machines. “I have always had a fascination with insects. Like the chemicals imprinting memories in the brain, the minerals have imprinted the memory of the insect into the rock.Ĭopper Plate Etchings Higher Ground | Etchings by John Cooper That is, through the process of fossilization, the organic elements of the insect have now become mineralized on a cellular level, which is also a chemical process. It is virtually unchanged, except that the fragile chemical compounds, proteins and insect fragments have now been transformed into minerals: rock. A fossil is also like a time machine of sorts, in that the fossilized insect is a living record of the day of its death millions of years ago. Music has an intimate link with emotion and can instantly throw one back to a time and place long passed on the chronological time line, not unlike a time machine (if one existed) or porthole to the past. It is a very potent force and hearing a particular song can evoke a strong emotional response. Music has always been a very important part of human culture and is deeply etched into the mores of human civilization. The titles of the prints are all songs from my recent and distant past, which have played a significant role in pivotal points of my life. The images in this collection are of fossilized insects. Active long term memory is dependent upon the strength of a stimulus encoded in the brain and is often associated with an emotional response, among other things. It involves neurotransmitters and receptors which imprint a chemical signal onto a cell in the brain. Monoprints Rock Paper Rock | Monoprints by John Cooper The action of retaining memory is, at its simplest form, a chemical process. The number of combinations and patterns is effectively without limit. When the box is turned or tapped, the objects inside tumble into an arbitrary grouping, and when the diffusing screen is illuminated, the sixfold or eightfold multiplication creates a striking symmetrical pattern. In this box are pieces of coloured glass, tinsel, or beads. At the other end is a thin, flat box that can be rotated it is made from two glass disks, the outer one ground to act as a diffusing screen. The mirrors are enclosed in a tube with a viewing eyehole at one end. A simple kaleidoscope consists of two thin, wedge-shaped mirror strips touching along a common edge or of a single sheet of bright aluminum bent to an angle of 60° or 45°. If the mirrors are inclined at 60°, a hexagonally symmetrical pattern results from one object producing six regularly placed images.
Each of these mirror images is in turn reflected in the other mirror, forming the appearance of four symmetrically placed objects. If an object is placed between two mirrors inclined at right angles, an image is formed in each mirror.
The kaleidoscope illustrates the image-forming properties of combined, inclined mirrors.
Sold usually as a toy, the kaleidoscope also has value for the pattern designer. The kaleidoscope was invented by Sir David Brewster about 1816 and patented in 1817. The name is derived from the Greek words kalos (“beautiful”), eïdos (“form”), and skopeïn (“to view”). The design may be changed endlessly by rotating the section containing the loose fragments. Kaleidoscope, optical device consisting of mirrors that reflect images of bits of coloured glass in a symmetrical geometric design through a viewer.
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