Graham McDougal | Cologne, 2022

35.5 x 45.8 cm

Edition of 15

Graham McDougal’s work and exhibitions begin with the printed page, which he approaches as a site, and source for research and practice. This involves photographing and scanning print ephemera, rare books, essays on art, typography, and architectural design. These are found in used bookstores or located in library collections. The publications that inform his work often describe how radical changes in the means of production can alter the function and intention of objects. Abstraction is purposefully introduced, particularly distortion to alter representational information. This recent series of relief prints are letterpress printed using photopolymer plates. The imagery is a montage of halftone dots and line screens that vary in size and angle to depict a series of domestic objects. The suite of prints is influenced by vanitas still-life painting. Objects that emerge from the distorted, mechanical imagery evoke luxury vessels such as crystal decanters, a cologne bottle, and a decorative, funerary urn. McDougal’s work has been exhibited recently at Print Center, New York, STDRD, St. Louis, Regina Rex, New York and Providence College Galleries. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, he studied at Cumbria College of Art and Design and at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, before earning a Master of Fine Arts from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He has taught printmaking at the University of California Davis, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Oberlin College and Cornell University.