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| Detail of Tom Huck's Print |
Tom Huck, the owner of Evil Prints, is a woodcut artist who works with large-scale print media. He is based in St. Louis Missouri, but originally grew up in Potosi, Missouri and uses this town’s history as a basis for many of his prints. His series called Two Weeks in August explores the different folktales from his hometown in surprisingly graphic detail. These absurd and gruesome images are what originally drew me to Tom Huck’s work.
Tom Huck is associated with the recent print movement called outlaw printmaking, which explores the odd dichotomy of disgust and intrigue, which I really admire. Before I began experimenting with wood my projects seemed safe and uncontroversial. However, the physical act of carving into the wood is a kind of therapy for me, and as a result woodcuts have led me to express emotions and images that I otherwise would have strayed away from conveying.
It is important to note the major influence behind Tom Huck’s work because it directly relates to his prints, as well as my own. Apocalypse with Pictures (Apocalypsis cum Figuris) is a series of fifteen woodcuts created by Albercht Durer in 1498. The fifteen woodblocks tell stories from the Book of Revelation and gave Durer, a German printmaker, huge fame and led him to be called one of the greatest artists of the Northern Renaissance. He revolutionized the way in which print media was viewed and showed the great potential of the medium.
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| Albercht Durer Print |
Albercht Durer is a huge influence for Tom Huck and Tom Huck is a huge influence for me. He is fully invested in his work and unafraid of his medium, which inspires me to push aside and worries I may have and just dive in. I saw his prints originally in 2008 during Endi Poskovic’s print class and his image entitled The Annual NRA Squirrel Hunt and BBQ has haunted me every since. His attention to detail is also something to admire and is overwhelming. His use of the entire block and intricate cuts pushed me to be unafraid of using the entire surface of my medium and has led me to create much more exciting prints.
The images and stories that Tom Huck is able to illustrate are amusing and hard to digest. I admire his storytelling, his ability to reflect on past memories and stories, and I feel this is a very important part of any piece of art. I strive to be able to tell a complete story and history as well as Tom Huck and I hope that I will be able to come close in my IP project for this coming year.
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My Print |
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| Detail of Tom Huck's Print |
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