Repetition in Printmaking

Printmaking allows an artist to make multiple prints/artworks from the same image using tools such as a matrix. In a world that values ‘the original’, can you list all the reasons artists would want to make multiple prints of an image? As a class brainstorm these reasons and dive critically into world-wide events, political, economic and cultural factors. Where do you as a young person see mass produced images? What information do these images carry and how does it affect you?

Think and Discuss:

Even within an image, printmaking techniques allow the artist to use repetition as an element of design. Using the prints above, identify how each artist used repetition in their image. How does the use of repetition strengthen or further convey the message they are communicating to their audience? 

Investigate Andy Warhol’s well-established use of repetition with screen printing to further communicate his ideas on identicalness and identity disruption.  Read this article and as a class discuss the different effects repetition had on his subject matters. 

“When you see a gruesome picture over and over again it doesn’t really have any effect” – Andy Warhol on The Death and Disaster series

Prince of Boredom: The Repetitions and Passivities of Andy Warhol, American Suburb X 2015