Árbol xilográfico [Printmaking Tree]

Since the 1990s, Abel Barroso has literally turned the woodblock print medium inside out. Although his earliest pieces are accomplished prints, he soon began to create assemblages and sculptures out of the wooden printing blocks themselves. He highlights this artistic substrate—the carved and inked wooden block— as compelling an artwork in itself, as well as the images it produces on paper.  

 

Above, Árbol xilográfico displays the inverted, mirror-image carved woodblocks, and below, the printed images they have produced. This tree is thus a visual illustration of Barroso’s process. The imagery upon its leaves includes art historical references to iconic works by celebrated printmakers who inspired Barroso, ranging from German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) to Norwegian Edvard Munch (1863-1944) to Mexican José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913). Barroso’s carved tree revives the woodblock print’s original function as an artform accessible to all: this vertical woodcut armature itself becomes a readymade machine for creating innumerable duplicate prints. In fact, a schematic design in the heart of the tree’s trunk of an imaginary woodcut machine suggests the possibility of prints made endlessly available—one readymade woodblock print machine displayed within another.