Susanna Harris Hughes

The Inheritance (Voyage around my Grandfather) IV
Offset Photoplate Lithography: Drawing on Drafting Film and Scanned Material
5 Runs including Chine Collé and Collage
600mm x 450mm
2006

The Inheritance series is about the artefacts, letters and documents which people leave behind when they die and which successive generations inherit – in this case from my grandfather.  Sometimes we are unaware to whom some of the objects had belonged, perhaps to people in our families from previous generations whom we have never met – but they get passed on because they were in the possession of our parents or grandparents.

This muddle of ‘legacies’ interests me and Offset Lithography gives me a range of options to express what I want to say about it. With plate lithography I can print onto dry tissue paper independently, unlike chine collé in etching. This material can then be collaged on to the initial print to ‘float’ on the surface but at the same time building up a layering of marks and images to convey a sense of history in the work.

Photo-lithography in particular gives me the opportunity to make finer, toned drawings using pencil rather than the thicker litho crayons and to incorporate scanned documents as well. The result is a less flat image than if it had be say screenprinted.