Intaglio Printmaker Prize Winner: Joanna Cohn

Tell us about the inspiration behind this print.

I wanted to create a dialogue between ideas of belonging and the human urge to map and to make images in order to locate ourselves in the world and navigate the unknown.

Map- like images hang next to images of the inside of the caves at Nerja, which gave humans a shelter for forty thousand years, and where some of the earliest cave paintings have been discovered. 

I wanted my installation to be a celebration of print. I incorporated various techniques including screen print, taku-hon and 3D print. The figures are 3D monoprints, as they were grown in the same mould, which was 3D printed. Each growing with variations. 

The inspiration for these human forms are the figures at Pompeii, which archeologists made by injecting plaster into the voids in the compacted ash which was all that remained of the people when they died in the eruption of Vesuvius. Their perfect but empty forms frozen in time.

The idea of just how small we all are, and yet how powerful, is at the centre of my work. the idea also relates to the large map, which, despite seeming like an aerial shot of the earth is in fact a 1:1 ratio ‘map’ of the surface of the studio floor. By questioning scale, I want to challenge our human relationship with the earth at this moment in time. 

What made you get into printmaking? 

The day I took an etching induction as part of my masters, I was instantly hooked. I find the process endlessly exciting and full of possibilities. I love that it demands both high levels of planning and control and creative freedom and loss of control. 

Tell us about your other works – are they similar or different? Do you tend to work within one technique?

I work across many techniques and am interested in exploring new sustainable ways of printmaking and in pushing the boundaries of what print can be. 

Print is a way of thinking about the world. When I see shadows they are moving prints and music is the imprint of sensation.

We each have a significant personal impact, leaving impressions etched on one another. The importance of noticing our carbon footprint today is ever more pressing. 

What would be on your ultimate Intaglio Printmaker wish list? 
Wow- well, one day I would love an etching printing press. But for now, to aid me in my attempt to cultivate a more sustainable practice, I would like some BIG ground, and a set of water based inks for etching and relief print. 

If you could own 1 artwork, what would it be?

I don’t need to own a great artwork. What I really love that most of the world’s most celebrated works are held in public collections which can be accessed by all. That said, I have an amazing collection of prints that I have swapped with fellow printmakers like Paul Dewis and Francesco Poiana, which I cherish.