Proofs of My Life

Made in 2014, the title suggests an inventory or assemblage of personal effects — receipts, documents, household objects, or other physical traces that constitute evidence of the artist's existence. The combination of etching, aquatint, and collagraph is suited to such a subject: collagraph in particular allows actual materials (paper scraps, fabric, thread) to be pressed into the plate and printed as ghosted impressions, literalizing the idea of "proof." Etched line work supplies legible detail for handwriting, stamps, or printed text, while aquatint provides a unifying tonal field. The work participates in a recognizable strand of contemporary Japanese intaglio in which the personal archive becomes pictorial subject. Read alongside Maeda's stated interest in life and death within daily living, the title carries a quieter weight: the proofs are not of accomplishment but of continued existence — the residue of getting through one more day.