Birkin Rosso

The predominant motif of the series Birkin Rosso is inspired by the actress Jane Birkin (1946-2023) and her role in the 1976 film Je t’aime moi non plus. Birkin’s character, the androgynous waitress Johnny, has featured in several of Saunders’ previous works and continues to be a source of inspiration for him.

Individually, the prints are enigmatic, self-contained mysteries, but when viewed together they inform and enrich each other. By repeating and yet varying the same subject, Saunders emphasises how still and moving images are linked; their seriality enhances the cinematic impression when viewed one after the other. In a particular scene from the film, Birkin’s character is lying in a bathtub. Saunders explores the experience of heightened sensation in the shifting space between submerging under water and emerging again, as he depicts the figure in this liminal moment.

When Saunders began the series, he was eager to experiment and push the boundaries of traditional printmaking techniques. The series evolved through variations of the same elements, echoing the work of sculptor Medardo Rosso (1858-1928), who is another key source of inspiration in Saunders’ work. Rosso’s sculptures are characterised by the same ambiguity of matter and space found in Saunders’ prints. The series combines photogravure with woodcut, two techniques rarely seen together. In each print, the figure materialises and erodes at the same time, giving a sense of being underwater or in a state of flux.