memory/scale (polymer print series)

Following the 2017 drypoint and collograph edition, the 2018 polymer print series develops the same memory/scale theme through photopolymer intaglio plates. In this process, a light-sensitive polymer-coated plate is exposed through a transparency carrying drawn or photographic imagery, then washed out in water and printed as an intaglio matrix on dampened paper. The technique permits a wider tonal range than drypoint alone — including continuous-tone passages approaching lithographic softness — and translates photographic source material into the dense, paper-embedded marks characteristic of pressed intaglio. The shift from hand-incised to photo-derived plates extends Kumagai's investigation of how traces are recorded and re-recorded across different material registers. Issued as a series rather than a single image, the work also engages with seriality, the repetition and variation that the title's "scale" implies. Within his broader Kyoto practice, which is organised around extended series and the question of how memory inhabits objects, the polymer prints sit alongside his oil painting and cast-iron sculpture as another method for fixing durational concerns onto a printed surface.