Surface Tests

Rock, Paper / July 11 – September 21, 2019 / Milton Art Bank, Milton, PA

Risograph print, ink and mud on paper, rock

Milton Art Bank (MAB) presents Rock, Paper, an exhibition of photographs and prints by Kim Beck. The works on view are the result of Beck looking at and recording the everyday landscape she sees on her daily walks with her dog. The act of printmaking, of making a copy from an original, runs through all of these works. For Beck, the print is a trace of an action grounded by touch and feel. In a large installation titled Surface Tests, rubbings of the road are copied and layered into thousands of Risograph prints, each one unique. Photographs of the road are woven together to create a new topography. Bricks from a demolished structure leave traces on paper, built up from rain and mud. A found rock becomes a salient object, akin to the Japanese suiseki rock appreciated for its aesthetic value; the black ink on its surface left behind after a series of prints, another trace of an implied, yet not visible, action. While works on paper are tenuous and fragile, the rock is solid. Collectively, this work is a meditation on roads, walking, and the intersection of humans and nature.