Label Type
Cultural/Historical ContextLabel
Membranes
Margot B. Myers
Etching on paper, Unique Impression, 2006
Printmaker Margot Myers distills her own observations and responses to the sublime power of nature into large scale works of intricate lines and repetitive patters.
Membranes comes from a series of works which examine various “ordered natural systems and organisms” such as veins and arteries, surging waves and surf, and branching rivers. Her interest in the sublime power of nature stems from summers spent in a remote fishing camp in Alaska.
Meyers embraces the evolution of her image making process allowing her compositions to unfold organically, taking her in directions she may not have originally intended.
In 2015 Myers founded Runaway Press, a community print shop in Bellingham, Washington where she lives and works.
“I invent landscapes that often use moving liquids, eroding patters and growing forms to express the awe that I experience in life and observation.
Membranes is a part of a small series of unique prints pulled from a set of 7 full-sized zinc etchings that originally fit together to make one modular image for my MFA thesis work.
This piece represents a shell undergoing a metamorphosis, adopting a form that is more sinister and less identifiable. The ubiquitous shell of course represents life, discovery/knowledge, growth, death and decay. This piece used scale, obsessively worked etching plates and installation to exaggerate the experience of finding and holding one of these intimately sized exoskeletons.
In addition to paper, the plates were also printed onto silk gauze as part of the original installation. The silk was hung directly in front of the paper prints in the same configuration, but lifting away on a shaped framework. I wanted them to appear to be a remnant, a molted shell that leaves behind the vessel that still carries life.
There is a sense of mystery that comes from seeing an image that is a part of a larger unknown system. Many from this series were collected or purchased soon after I had the opportunity to make them. I’m grateful for this, because the bulk of the pieces from this series were destroyed in a sewage leak into my flat files a few years ago. The gratitude that comes from knowing that a handful were cared for and can be seen elsewhere is hard to describe. I hope that a viewer who sees Membranes will have an exciting sense that they are peering into a small window that leads to a larger world.
Margot B. Myers, Artist