Polly Apfelbaum | Hudson River Valley Nirvana

HUDSON RIVER VALLEY NIRVANA

Durham Press has completed a series of prints with Polly Apfelbaum, Hudson River Valley Nirvana, which uses vertical lines in a square format as a starting point from which to explore the interaction of primary and secondary colors. Initially conceived in 2012, these six woodblock prints are published as an edition of fifteen, each measureing 36 7/8 x 36 7/8 inches and printed in a single impression with thirty-two colors on handmade Japanese Hiromi DHM-11 Triple Thick paper.

Apfelbaum adopted a systematic approach to discover the possible images within a set of parameters, much like Joseph Albers’ Interaction of Color. Printed with sixty-four narrow wooden blocks each, the six works feature the same set of colors from an expanded chromatic scale that are repeated in different arrangements with a largely symmetrical structure applied to each image. In this new scale, the color spectrum is expanded by separating each color into 5 different hues. Each hue has an equal change between them, including between the colors themselves to create a gradation of 30 colors. Nirvana plays with this expanded spectrum by looping it back on itself with the addition of black and silver – every other block is inked with the next step up on the scale until it reaches halfway, at which point it circles back on itself and fills in the gaps with the next color on the spectrum. This is then mirrored on the second half of the print, creating an undulating array of colors. The portfolio itself also creates a loop: the halfway point where the spectrum circles back on itself becomes the starting point of another print, creating inverted pairs within the six prints.