The Secret Sharer - Limited Edition 1 of 12 Print

This image came to me one night when my wife mentioned Joseph Conrad's story, "The Secret Sharer," one of my favorites. Basically, it's an encounter between the captain of a sailing ship and a swimmer he discovers one dark night, a fugitive from another ship. This guy is on the run, or the swim, having committed a crime on the other ship, but the captain immediately thinks of him as another version of himself, a doppelganger. The idea is that the captain has safety and security but no freedom, while the swimmer is in great danger but he is also free. It's the old dichotomy of security vs. freedom, always a problem for artists. So I intended for the face of my swimmer, even though he's down there in the water with the sharks, to have a sort of smirk on his face, and when I modeled for it I videoed myself with this smug, evil grin. But when I painted it, it didn’t come out that way. The brush took over, as so often happens, and this terrified face emerged! Not what I intended at all- and certainly not what Conrad intended - but then I realized that this was the truth in my case, so I left it that way. I'm too old to swim with sharks. Often the artwork is more truthful than the artist. I stuck to that truth in the print. This is a 2-color linocut, image 10 x 7 inches, sheet 14 x 11 inches. They can ship unmounted or matted. The Criswell Linocut I began these experiments with linoleum back in 1999. Although these prints may resemble etchings, drypoints, lithographs or some strange hybrid, they are true relief prints, printed in two or more colors from linoleum blocks. I didn't invent this technique - Picasso and his printer Arnera did - but I've adapted it to my own purposes and, since nobody else in the world is doing it as far as I know, I'm calling it "The Criswell Linocut." The two most important things about this technique are that (1) I cut the designs with a drypoint needle and (2) that I print the dark color first and the light color second. This enables me to draw my image directly on the key block, just as I would draw with a pen on paper, rather than cut away everything BUT the image as in traditional relief printmaking. For more info about this, checkout www.warrencriswell.com/linocuts.html

Printmaking:Linocuts on Paper

Artist Produced Limited Edition of:1

Size:11 W x 14 H x 0.1 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.