After visiting the MoMA gallery whilst in NYC, and in particular the William Kentridge exhibition, I have returned to Sheffield utterly inspired. Displayed was a collection of beautiful sculpted prints and fantastically chaotic charcoal drawings. I now know that I want my main focus of my journey as an Illustrator to be Lino and Woodcut printing. In "Trace" a collection of his finest linos, drypoints, aquatints and etchings, in a talk with The Associates of The Department of Prints and Illustrated Books (MoMA) he mentions his methods and I was left utterly overwhelmed by the intelligence and chaos control he has over his work. He is not it's slave by any means and produces work so sequentially perfect that I have received a massive boost in my intentions at University and for my career post education. One part in particular was when he mentioned "before each plate was printed, I gave myself half an hour to rework the plate, so although that it was a print produced a number of times, each one has little variations." This is an unbelievable dedication to his art form. Uniquely edited and continuously adapted his work from print to print. This is an amazing inspiration to myself and I would be shocked to hear that it didn't influence other people.
Ranging from pure observation to twisted and dream like, evaded of reality, his work encompasses a huge selection of communicative elements even including motion work. If I am 10% of the designer William Kentridge is I will be happy. Though in my nature, I will not be satisfied until I can communicate as fluently and effectively as Kentridge does in his work. Purely incredible is a far short a statement from the beauty his work achieves.
