Ouroboros Shredder, 2017, speaking to the Greek mythological concept of the cyclical nature of life and death, depicts the entire span of the printmaking processes of: drawn image (matrix), printing/editioning, and destroying the matrix into one narrative. This lithograph is printed onto one sheet of 31″ x 47″ printmaking paper, slit in seven locations, and folded together eighteen times in an uninterrupted fashion à la the Japanese art of kirigami, which is a variation of origami that includes cutting of the paper. No parts of the paper are cut off or apart, even to the inclusion of the registration punch holes, normally torn off during the curatorial process. However, one distinction to note, origami and kirigami both follow a system in which the folds and cuts make a sculptural object, while in Ouroboros Shredder the folding makes both the object (shredder) and the space it occupies (background). It therefore determines itself in relation to its surroundings, and vice versa, in a self-sufficient manner that is indicative of the Ouroboros concept.Ouroboros — which is typically depicted as a serpent eating its own tail — has no waste and constantly renews itself. In this manner, underlying Ouroboros Shredder lay critical issues facing our own management of resources and the cyclical nature of sustainability.— Andrzej Zielinski, 2017

Courtesy of Bedrock Editions