Kiki Smith

The Vitreous Body

Kiki Smith's artist book The Vitreous Body calls on the words of the Greek philosopher Parmenides for text, and is illuminated by the artist's woodcuts and printed on translucent paper, recalling the luminosity of ancient vellum. Yet the book is fresh and entirely contemporary. A meditation on light and vision, it is created by one of today's most exciting and original artists.

The woodcuts in The Vitreous Body were created using the Graphicstudio invented technique of heliorelief, which allows photographic images to be transferred to a block of wood. The image is then placed into relief not by traditional handcutting but by sandblasting. The text was printed from polymer plastic plates. Both images and text were printed on Japanese paper using a letterset press.

Europa

Kiki Smith's dimensional 4-color process photogravure, Europa, depicts the two sides of Europa, one of the largest moons of Jupiter first discovered by Galileo and S. Marius in 1610. Each side of the moon was printed on translucent Gampi rice paper and shaped into two half-orbs, which are attached around openings cut into the paper; a second sheet of rice paper is attached at the back top edge. Each three-dimensional form is precisely distanced from each other to equal the distance between the artist's breasts. The artist's expression, "I am the flesh of the full moon." Is lithographed beneath the two images. Once again, Kiki's Smith's deceptively simple yet discerning use of paper, organically shaped and allowed to naturally ripple, evokes the might of the human body or wind-swept plane, each encompassing a vast ethereal void.

Printmaking + Sculpture Terms

Printmaking Glossary

Sculpture Glossary

Sales

For sales, or more information about an edition, please contact Graphicstudio at (813) 974-3503 or gsoffice@usf.edu.

Copyright + Reproduction

Images of the artwork are jointly owned by the artist and Graphicstudio. Reproduction of any kind including electronic media must be expressly approved by Graphicstudio.