The Inverted Line

Walker works in the oldest style of printmaking - it goes back to the middle ages in the West, with roots much farther back. While working with the traditional materials, his innovations in tools and imagery make this a very current body of work. Woodcut, as the name implies, incises its image into the surface of a wooden block. The traditional craft uses knives and gouges to create imagery, normally working in the negative space around the inked imagery. It's never been a spontaneous medium. Even the apparent spontaneity in some Japanese woodcut is an illusion, painstakingly worked to create the illusion of free and easy drawing. Using modern power tools, Walker has achieved what others spent hundreds of years imitating: a woodcut style as loose and spontaneous as a drawing. The result can be startling and delightful. I first noticed the freehand line in plate 6, "Raguel, angel of vengeance." That style really comes into its own in plates 42 and 43, though. The first, "Lovers", lets Walker use his loose and curving lines express the close and curving forms of the embracing couple. The second, "The Kiss", matches Walker's humanistic lines to the very human affection of the couple. There's not a lot of text in this book: commentary on each of the 70+ featured images, plus a little about Walker's life and manner of working. That helps explain why his work is so little-known. Much of it has gone into handcrafted books of which only one or two hundred were ever printed, and into collections that rarely circulate outside the printmaking community. Even though the uniqueness of each impression is lost in reproducing the works for a wider audience, I'm very glad that he has made it available in this lovely edition. It's fascinating work, sure to be welcome in any library on prints and printmaking. //wiredweird