Press Relief: A Fresh Take on Preserving Flowers

The preservation of memories and objects has always been a huge inspiration behind printmaker, Masy Chighizola, aka Press Relief’s work. “A bouquet, for example, represents a special occasion or memory that can spark a feeling of nostalgia. Like many items of our possession, it becomes a relic that we are able to make a connection with” describes Masy.

After her wedding, an attempt was made to preserve her bouquet through the traditional method of drying the flowers and placing them in a shadow box as a keepsake. Although Masy still has the flowers, they bare little resemblance to the beautiful bouquet she originally placed in the box. Wanting to bring the memory of her bouquet back to life, she decided to make a reduction linocut of her treasured bouquet, knowing that it would last.

This project led to a commission of another bridal bouquet, which is where she decided to take this idea to the next level. “I wanted the flowers to look even more life like, so I began printing each flower and leaf separately, cutting them out by hand, then collaging all the pieces back together as a bouquet. Lastly, a piece of lace is placed on the bouquet stems to complete it” says the printmaker. Every piece is securely attached to the page with PVA glue, however, Masy likes to leave some parts partially unglued so that there is space to allow for the creation of shadows.

For each bouquet, she makes editions of every flower and leaf so that in the future, she can put them to use in another bouquet that has some of the same flower arrangement. Masy hopes to build up a nice library of pieces so that she is able to make them faster, as they typically take around a month to finish. She concludes; “I’ve really enjoyed making these as a fresh take on preserving the beauty of flowers”.

www.pressreliefprints.com
@press_relief

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