Trish Meyer, a native of Dublin, Ireland, enjoyed a variety of careers in the creative field from musician to motion graphics designer and author, before falling under the printmaking spell. She works on paper and fiber, combining calligraphic marks with hybrid printmaking techniques, including cyanotype.
Trish says: "After having spent years experimenting with traditional printmaking techniques, I now find my inner geek creeping back in, adding 3D models and animation frames frozen in time and rendered with ink on paper. I embrace the unusual combinations and possibilities found between digital printers and my hand-cranked etching press – designing pixels that you can hold in your hand.” Despite her emphasis on experimental processes, Meyer’s art offers subtle political commentary, hidden in plain sight in her abstract designs."
Artist Statement
After exploring a wide range of art techniques and materials over the past decade, I’ve discovered that printmaking is my true love. It allows my left brain to plan and measure while treating my right brain to happy accidents. I find myself inspired by the unexpected after a career spent creating computer graphics where pixels and words are formed with a great degree of control. The more digital graphics I designed, the more I yearned to create personal calligraphic marks.
My recent work is a creative interpretation of how my artistic spirit has been completely boggled by political events in the United States. As an immigrant who followed the American dream, I always felt that America was traveling in the right direction, albeit with a few course corrections along the way. To me, it currently feels like it’s wobbling around in a wonky orbit, in danger of being flung off in the wrong direction as the populace resigns itself to a “new normal.” My recent art can’t help but offer commentary on this scene, yet I prefer a more subtle approach using abstract designs rather than a wild, angry rant.
My new series incorporates flowers and plants, reflecting my deep love for nature. Even while designing motion graphics in the heart of Los Angeles, I had a commercial greenhouse in our back yard that I could escape to, growing native plants for wildlife and breeding butterflies. In New Mexico, my art studio has become my new emotional oasis.
After having spent years experimenting with traditional printmaking techniques, I now find my inner geek creeping back in, adding 3D animation frames frozen in time and rendered with ink on paper. I embrace the unusual combinations and possibilities found between various digital printers and my hand-cranked etching press – designing pixels that you can hold in your hand.
Many pieces depend on the latest digital tools. I position a virtual camera inside a 3D world and summon an assortment of points and lines to populate the vertices, or intersection points, of 3D models. These images are printed either as digital negatives to create cyanotypes on paper or fabric, or as positive transparencies for various printmaking processes. Wireframe drawings and shapes work well as photo collagraphs, embedded into a textured gesso plate and printed intaglio, sometimes over watercolor monotypes. Other images are rendered as a photo carborundum plate and overprinted as a second layer.
