thorsten dennerline
New York
https://www.thebirdpress.com
IG: thorstendennerline

FRAGMENTED ELEMENTS/ WATER, ELECTRICITY, CRYSTAL, PLANTS
2024
Multi-plate photo lithography from hand drawn films, printed both sides, in a 47 in. Hahnemuhle trifold wrapper printed with lithography and letterpress
22×17.5×0.25 inches closed. Variable formats and sizes open

Artist Statement

This project was initiated during the quarantines of 2020 using a newly acquired Steinmesse & Stollberg DUFA IV press. The intense atmosphere of anxiety and fear at the time, not just from the pandemic but also related to a ubiquitous rise in fascist rhetoric, compelled me to explore a metaphysical space of optimistic fantasy. Not as a retreat, but as a way of asserting humanity and beauty during what felt like a particularly hopeless time. Although I often collaborate with others on my printing projects, this one was solitary. In a sense, my only collaborator was the press itself with its many quirks and painstaking renovation. So in essence, the project documented a conversation with this historical machine. I employed a form of open-ended planning, overprinting layers of transparent colors to create the images, each responding to how the previous one had manifested on the sheet, much like working on a painting. Each of the four pieces is based on broad metaphysical themes as prompts for exploration.

The four elements I chose were: Water as a free- owing tide, Electricity as heat energy, Crystal relating to earth and mind energy, and Plants representing all new life. This is not about new age religion or psychedelia, but rather a celebration of fantasy, and also, survival. These impulses were coupled with a parallel interest in the way a book can transform, which can then be built into a new poetic realization—one that is always changing. So in reference to the book as an idea, I planned a folio fold through the middle of each sheet, and then designed an alternative fold-out sculptural version that can be viewed as a relief wall sculpture or on a horizontal plane. In this way, each of the four elements can be viewed in four formats: book folio, relief sculpture,  at side A, or  at side B, making this into a multi-use, interactive, and transforming print object, like a book (see diagram above).

This way, each element is more than one thing, transformable in meaning both individually and in conversation with each other. Each element is printed approximately seven times on each side of a sheet of Mohawk Superne paper, using hand-drawn lms exposed onto photosensitive lithographic plates. The trifold cover folios are on Hahnemuhle Copperplate paper. EDITION INFORMATION There are twelve full sets that contain all four elements, each in a specially printed folder numbered I-XII. There are individual prints, also with folders, named and numbered in the following edition sizes: Water: H2O 1-4 Electricity: LIVR 1-7 Crystal: XTL 1-2 Plants: PB6F 1-8. Edition: 12