Jorinde Voigt | Meditation Copenhagen

For Meditation Copenhagen, a suite of twelve etchings, Jorinde Voigt limited herself exclusively to the drypoint technique.

By working in an unusually small format and denying her etchings any colour, she achieves a rigorous focus on the most immediate, essential form of printmaking: the direct encounter between etching needle and copper plate. While some of the etched lines reflect the physical resistance of this encounter, other shapes appear remarkably fluid and organic, recalling the free flow of Voigt’s pencil lines on paper.

While the small scale and the absence of colour may be specific to her suite of etchings, the title of the portfolio points towards characteristic elements of Voigt’s work across media: She always disclosed her works’ place of creation, and occasionally, as in the Meditation Copenhagen-etchings, includes it in the title of her works. The notion of a meditation may refer to the rigorous focus and deep contemplation which characterized the works’ production; it may also allude to music, another recurring topic in Voigt’s practice, a meditation being a piece of music which explores different variations of a musical theme.

Thinking in series, suites or variations on a theme is essential to Voigt’s artistic practice regardless of the medium she works in. Once she has established a visual code for the subject matter at hand – be it a piece of philosophical writing, music or an emotional state – she elaborates on it, changes, revisits and reshapes it. Correspondingly, Meditation Copenhagen can be seen as an investigation of the possibilities and limitations of printmaking in a series of experiments; it is the medium itself which is under investigation.