Jane Kent and Richard Ford
Jane Kent, Skating (2011), one from the set of eleven intaglio and silkscreen prints with letterpress.
Jane Kent and Richard Ford
Skating (2011)
A set of eleven intaglio and silkscreen prints with letterpress in an edition of 35.
This project is a wall construction as much as it is a book or a portfolio. The eleven prints—etchings, drypoints, mezzotints, screenprints, letterpress—together construct a short story by Richard Ford in which two unnamed lovers bicker their way to the end of an extramarital affair. Kent is known for her chromatically intense abstractions and for her literary collaborations (this is her second project with Richard Ford; she also worked with Susan Orlean on The Orchid Thief Re-imagined), and the images here are no closer to “illustrating” the text than her earlier works. Instead they “unpack” (to use the current vogue critical verb) the story—as structure, affect, and parable. Each print is a different size and different format, so the story cannot be read as a page-turner, but must be digested in individual portions. As with the tale of the relationship, you may guess where things are heading, but you cannot see around corners.
Published by Grenfell Press, New York
Price: $2500 through June 30, 2011; $3200 after that date.
