The Mute Persistence of Water
In this visual essay Susan Leeson presents her prints and poems in which she explores water through print making techniques. Her prints, often sparse and minimal, focus on the surface of water where reflections from above, and hints of what lies below meet. Susan is currently completing her MA in Creative Practice and is a member of the Hull Print Collective. She has exhibited work at Form Shop and Studio, Burton Constable, Salt, and Sunny Bank Mills. She is about to open Eastgate Studio in Beverley.
‘The Mute Persistence of Water’
Water is primordial, the source of life. Beneath the effervescent surface exists a subaqueous world that we occasionally gain a fleeting glimpse of, before it’s gone. These prints and poems come from a recent project titled the ‘Mute Persistence of Water’ where I investigated water and the way the surface texture signals what lies beneath. The title comes from ‘Canal 77’ a poem by U A Fanthorpe.
We have a human relationship to water. Water flows through the earth in rivers, oceans, clouds and rain, has always been here and always will be. This fundamental, natural resource essential for life, has always been important for me, growing up on the East Coast of Yorkshire near the Humber. Having explored printmaking techniques such as etching and aquatint, stone lithography and screenprint, I settled on relief printmaking to create thematic linocut prints using water as the subject matter of the work.
Rippling Rings I Linocut print
Through the study of water surface, we start to notice repeated shapes. When creating Rippling Rings I was influenced by Henri Matisse’s cut-outs; aiming to present movement in the surface water in a similar minimalist manner to Matisse in The Swimming Pool. In Rippling Rings I drew on Matisse’s form to create a minimalist aesthetic, whereby abstracted shapes of the reflected light create negative space representing the river water.
Window Reflected in Pool Water | Screenprint
I collaborated with graphic designer Joseph Cox, to develop the digital file in preparation for the screenprint Window Reflected on Pool Water. Indeed, the image could have been reproduced as a digital print, and any prints produced from the digital files would be exactly the same and could be printed in limitless numbers. However, digital images produce a very different aesthetic to analogue. Although one of the aims in analogue printmaking is to be able to reproduce the same image in multiples, each print can be slightly different due to manual handling of machinery, equipment and inks, and the variable condition of the workshop.
Pool Surface | Linocut print
I appropriated the white background of the paper to create the impression of light and movement in the linocut print Pool Surface. By disconnecting the representation of the water from the rest of the “scene” I simplified the image to just the water surface, leaving the viewer to create any meanings regarding the wider context of the image.
River Swale with Birds | Linocut print
River Swale with Birds uses hues taken from the observed location. Mondrian argued that: ‘the colours of nature cannot be reproduced on canvas’ so he looked for ‘a new way to express the beauty of nature’. I also grapple with the issue of colour and representation. It’s compelling to consider how an exploration of minimalism can lead the artist to the single, flat colour such as the ultramarine or ‘International Klein Blue’ in any of Yves Klein’s 200 monochrome paintings. In a similar way, my colour palette is emerging in the blue/green hues of the ocean and water in the natural environment.
The addition of bird shapes creates a reference to the origin of some of the reflected shapes on the water. However also included are shapes abstracted from light reflected on rocks and water.
Sea Wave | Linocut print
Here I explore how to represent the sound of the sea. I have used the sound waveform of a crashing sea upsurge as the basis for the linocut print. The hue is taken from the range of green/blue hues observed during a visit to Whitby on the East Coast of Yorkshire.
Moby | Linocut print
“Moby” is influenced by Herman Melville’s novel “Moby Dick” (1851) and its connection with Burton Constable Hall, East Yorkshire. The skeleton of a 58½ foot long sperm whale, found stranded at Tunstall in 1825, and currently exhibited in the Stable Block at the Hall, is said to have captured Melville’s attention:
“…at a place in Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale…” (Moby Dick, 1851).
Here a suggestion of the whale beneath the water is created through size and shape of the cuts into the linoleum. Sometimes the spume blurs into a solid light shape against the sea-green hue. I found similar repeated shapes and tone when attempting to create movement of the water.
Tidal Bulge | Screenprint
I investigated the science behind my ideas and observations, for example, the screen-print Tidal Bulge is based on the physics of ocean tides. The gravitational force between Earth and the moon creates the tides. Water is pulled toward the moon on Earth’s “near side”, the side closest to the moon, creating a tidal bulge in the ocean. The water on the opposite “far side” of Earth also bulges as it tries to move away from Earth in a straight line. As the earth rotates daily, the coast is dragged through the bulge, and so the water level rises and falls each 24 hours.
Whitby to Sandsend
Effervescent in the October sun,
We tread familiar steps,
On sea hardened sand from,
Whitby to Sandsend.
Prints briefly show our time here,
Which are yours and which are mine?
then
Deleted by the sea.
Þingvellir
The sound of it,
Before it is seen,
It roars, and crashes.
Calling ancient people,
To assembly.
I’m transfixed,
The power of it holds me,
Here.
This place of magic and darkness,
Creeps into my being.
Flowing through veins.
Becoming anchored.