Alena Kučerová, Three Trees, 1981
One of Alena Kučerová's distinctive graphic techniques has become perforating, punching a metal matrix. Instead of etching or etching lines, dots and grains into the metal surface, i.e. instead of working only the surface and providing the viewer with a certain illusion created on the surface, the artist confronted the material in a much more concrete and forceful way. The printing process then produces remarkable effects where the edges of the 'wounds' in the material take on a certain subtle shading and plasticity. Matrices and prints thus contain equally valuable, partly two-dimensional and partly relief or sculptural qualities.
Alena Kučerová is one of the leading Czech innovators in the field of graphic techniques, processes and meanings. The medium of printmaking is for her (as for Vladimír Boudník, etc.) a sphere of experimentation, of grappling with concrete materials, with matter in its singularity and urgency. She has also worked on illustrations and glass realisations. She is also working on a series of relief assemblages, in which the relationship between surface and sculptural three-dimensional and material expression comes into play again.
Author: Václav Hájek
