I attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn for somewhere between three and four semesters, from the fall of 1975 to the spring of 1977. I had planned to major in printmaking if I had stuck it out.
all artwork © Bruce Carleton 2021
“Right/Left/Left/Right MEDIUM: photoetching combined with traditional etching STORY: Here I was able to combine the two things I liked doing most at the time: intaglio printing and the use of photos in my art.
“Radiograph” MEDIUM: photoetching STORY: I was excited with the idea of using photos in my prints and thought this was the angle I wanted to pursue.
“Fruit of La Lune” MEDIUM: etching + aquatint STORY: A lot of the things I drew in my notebooks during that time came from my dreams, which tended to be vivid. This is one of those drawings that I turned into a print.
“Spectral Emesis, Black” MEDIUM: lithograph STORY: 1976 is too far back to remember exactly what I had in mind, but I know I was strongly influenced by the Mayan art I was exploring at the time.
“Spectral Emesis, Ochre” MEDIUM: etching STORY: See “Spectral Emesis, Black.” (Shown with bonus glass block window reflection.)
“Diabolus Lupus” MEDIUM: etching STORY: I was reading a lot of mystical stuff like Aleister Crowley and Tibetan demonology.
“Bzz Flp” MEDIUM: lithograph/monoprint STORY: This was a one-off doodle that I did when I was first leaning lithography.
“Window on the Infernal Regions” MEDIUM: acrylic paint on paper STORY: For the first year I was at Pratt I lived in the dorm. I was in a lot of psychic upheaval at the time, and spent long evenings staring out the window at the eerie red glow of Brooklyn and waiting for an answer. None came, at least not quickly, but this painting — the only one I ever did between about 1973 and 2015 (see “Who Itches…”) — captured that feeling pretty well.
