Charline von Heyl

They could choose a new print twice a year or so…good stuff…I remember Polke, Horst Janssen, Bele Bachem and Sarah Schumann, among others. Every once in a while they would totally rehang. I grew up looking at prints. For me art was prints.

Maybe this is why, when I started painting, I worked in layers, with brushstrokes looking alienated, mimicking techniques and effects rather than expression and the hand.

I wanted that same look and feeling, but from a painting. This way of working kept me, paradoxically, away from actually printing for many years. I thought making prints, especially editions, would be too restrictive and product orientated.

But I was curious and made a deal with Rob Swainston of “Prints of Darkness” whom I knew to be an innovative genius, to work together. He would show me everything. We mixed every technique from woodcut to Inkjet, often printing on works of paper I had prepared or would rework later. We did that for a whole summer. It blew my mind. It activated and pushed the paintings. I was hooked.

After that I got curious about concentrating play and experiment into an actual edition, which seemed hardcore and intimidating, especially etching. And I found it indeed to be as challenging as making a painting, but without the solitude and, paradoxically, with more freedom. I loved working with a team of master printers, as I just did at ULAE, or with Crown Point Press or Maurice Sanchez. They get the vibe, they have my back, they have a solution when I didn’t even realize that I had a problem. It is magic. And so much fun. And now a crucially important part of who I am as an artist.