David Kelso

Working exclusively as an intaglio printmaker, David Kelso has been an outspoken advocate of print as a medium for original expression. A professional printer since 1971, he founded his Oakland intaglio workshop, made in California, in 1980 to publish editions by other artists as well as continue producing his own prints.

Abstract gestural elements had come to dominate his work after assisting Richard Diebenkorn on a print project in 1978, and ongoing work with Frank Lobdell has further focused Kelso's interest in line, scale, and personal symbolism. He has used the same copper plates for each of his editions since 1981, subtractively reworking them through scraping and burnishing, while simultaneously introducing new elements.

At some point in this process, past imagery gives way to something new and entirely unforseen. This working method--similar to reworking the ghost impression of a monotype--underlines Kelso's continuing interest in the sequential nature of artmaking. His extensive use of brushstroke in sugarlift, white ground, and spit-bite aquatint, along with complex color overprintings, blends a painter's sensibility with a printer' stechnical knowledge, allowing him to think directly in the print medium. By Kelso's measure, such direct thinking distinguishes an original multiple from a reproduction far more accurately than any nuanced technical definition: "Rather than thinking of printmaking as a reproductive medium for translating ideas from one medium to another, I approach it in the same spirit of original expression as I'd approach a painting, drawing, or any other primary medium."

Submitted by Dolby Chadwick Gallery