Nicole Eisenman

Narrator: These works by Nicole Eisenman are monotypes, a kind of print. To make them, the artist draws on a non-absorbent plate and presses it against a piece of paper. The process is very immediate, intimate, and yields only one image. It’s a simple technique, but it allows for a lot of variety and spontaneity. Eisenman has said that making monotypes has allowed her to, quote, “explode ideas around mark-making.” If you look closely you’ll see that there are hard contours, subtle washes, intense patches of color, and moments of collage, overpainting, and etching. On the one hand, Eisenman seems to be exploring all of these marks, trying to find out what they can do. On the other, she’s using them to evoke a complex range of human emotion.