Elizabeth A. Jabar

Making prints and objects is a process of reclamation and a search for connections. Through the labor intensive methods of drawing, carving, printing, dyeing paper, cutting shapes, and assembling forms I enter into an extended dialog with my images. The simple materials- ink, paper, wax, and thread are fashioned and transformed into tactile environments that conjure multilayered narratives and lead us away from the ordinary.

The unfolding sequence of a book and the reiterations of image from print to print do not depict a specific, particular occurrence, but evoke a story through a series of symbolic statements. Multiple configurations of threads, lines, and cords are passages to abstract, unfolding regions, while cyclical patterns and geometrical ornaments mark transitions between material and spiritual realms.

Working from page to page I carefully align these potent signs, patterns, and colors that help to transmit the histories embedded within the forms and figures. Images of women, nature, pattern motifs, and symbols seem to come from disparate sources, but there is a common thread that I clearly recognize, it’s just hard to define.  

In this time of deliberation, sifting through images and arranging fragments, I question and reflect upon the complexities and richness of my cultural identity, and hope to get closer to its source.

The content of my work focuses on the complexities and richness of my cultural identity and my imagery emcompasses an array of influences including folk art, theology, images of women, nature, pattern motifs, and symbols. These varied motifs are part of a large lexicon I have built up over the last ten years. The image lexicon continues to evolve and develop into a series of projects including cut paper, artists books, assemblage and varied print editions. I utilize a range of techniques and take a very labor intensive approach to building up image and surface by combining several printmaking techniques. Most recently this includes screen print, etching, woodcut, collagraph and xerox litho.

The stories I tell coalesce the human and the divine and attempt to reconcile opposites, ephemeral/eternal, and life/death. The unfolding sequence of a book and the reiterations of image from print to print do not depict a specific, particular occurrence, but evoke a story through a series of symbolic statements. Multiple configurations of threads, lines, and cords are passages to abstract, unfolding regions, while cyclical patterns and geometrical ornaments mark transitions between material and spiritual realms.

Working from page to page I carefully align these potent signs, patterns, and colors that help to transmit the histories embedded within the forms and figures. Images of women, nature, pattern motifs, and symbols seem to come from disparate sources, but there is a common thread that I clearly recognize, it’s just hard to define.   

In this time of deliberation, sifting through images and arranging fragments, I question and reflect upon the complexities and richness of my cultural identity, and hope to get closer to its source.