The Art of Jim Machacek
Intaglio, collage, artists' books and drawings
I love paper and all of its possibilities. Its flat expanses invite all manner of endeavors: crisp lines
of graphite, soft smudges of charcoal, lyrical swaths of ink and pigment. So I draw on it.
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Its textures eagerly drink in ink. So I make all kinds of plates and prints on it … intaglios,
monotypes and reliefs.
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Its suppleness demands to be embossed. So I hand-set letter forms into well-constructed
sentences and create artists’ books.
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Sometimes paper has a masochistic side and cries out to be cut, pierced, folded, torn and
sewn… So I construct collages, quilt forms, even houses.
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Maybe most of all I love telling stories. It may be a short story involving a gang of abstract
shapes fighting muted colors or a sprawling installation tracing family drama over centuries (see
“The Kincade Chronicles”) but in my mind there is always something going on. I can’t help it.
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I love maps, trying to make music visual, archeology, secret things and the idea of angels. My
current favorite color is blue… so something big and blue will come your way in Feb 2019… my
next solo exhibition.