Magdalen Road Studio Box PrintExchange 'CommUnity'
Julian Dourado
Title: “Dayspring”
Year: 2018
Medium: Etching
Image Size: 22.5cm x 22.5cm
Paper Size: 28cm x 35cm
Julian Dourado is a painter, printmaker and occasional illustrator from the UK. As a painter, working mainly in oils, he applies an abstract and symbolist approach to his principle subjects and themes, which are taken from the local landscape, both natural and urban, as well as from esoteric schools of thought including Hermeticism and Gnosticism. Though much of his work is deeply private – not responding to particular societal trends or movements – he makes art for an audience and wants his works to have the power to move people, even though the
particular symbolism might not be understood consciously. He intends his artwork to work on two levels – the rational and the non-verbal, the latter affecting one in a manner akin to music. “The linocut print 'Dayspring' is a single black and white image produced from two distinct, separate plates. Though each plate consists of a relatively simple design of straight horizontals or vertical lines as well as curved lines, when superimposed the lines mesh together to form a grid-like image. I'm interested in seeing the wondrous in the mundane – the initial impetus for making this print can be found in the rugged designs of a number of manhole covers which I often notice walking to and from my studio. These designs are, of course, utilitarian in intent, yet they seem to mirror the forms and graphic construction found in traditional cosmological, esoteric and mandalic art and diagrams.”