Driven by a love of physical materials, Irish artist Eimearjean McCormack’s practice is predominantly print based. With a Masters degree in Fine Art Print from the University of the Arts London, in 2016 Eimearjean completed a second Masters in Graphic Design specialising in publication design projects primarily informed by artists’ books and zine culture. As well as maintaining her artistic practice, she works full time as Print, Photography and Digital Fabrication Technician at GMIT Centre for Creative Arts & Media. Alongside her technical role, Eimearjean is also a part time lecturer in Book Arts on the Contemporary Art program.
Eimearjean works across a variety of techniques, which involves scanning and manipulating images to generate photo positives for silkscreen, photo intaglio, Risograph or cyanotype printing. Most of the books she creates reflect on a practical exploration of this approach through the imperfections and malfunctions that occur. “I find that leaving things to chance and improvising in the final stages of production can often yield the most interesting results,” describes the printmaker. While most of her books lack a sequential structure in the traditional sense, Eimeajean’s aim is to challenge the reader’s perspective and create a tactile experience through the printed page.
“I am not precious about my work and feel It is important to encourage personal interaction, allowing the viewer to analyse and interpret the individual qualities and textures first-hand. This emphasis on documenting process and using it as the main subject is heavily inspired by Dieter Roth.”
Her latest project, Survey, is a series of silkscreen prints that draw inspiration from the open plane of vast natural environments, combining hand drawn and graphic representations with an abstract interpretation of place. For the series four separate silkscreen layers were used to generate the final images and achieve the dark cyan hue tone. On the pros of screen printing, Eimearjean states; “Silkscreen is an incredibly versatile medium and by far my favourite to use as It allows me to work intuitively overprinting multiple colours. The various stages of the process permit spontaneous technical decisions, which often lead to those “happy accidents” that otherwise might not have occurred.”
When developing a new body of work, Eimearjean habitually creates a publication in parallel which acts as a visual record of her process. This usually incorporates relevant research, images and sketches that lead towards the final outcome allowing the viewer to see the progression from beginning to end. “The possibilities that can be contained within this intimate space are limitless,” says the artist.
Alongside her own practice and funded by the Arts council of Ireland, Eimearjean is currently designing a limited edition publication in collaboration with artist Ruby Wallis and writer Phillina Sun. Watch this space for more!
www.eimearjeanmccormack.com
@eimearjeanmccormack
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