The reduction print.

A reduction print is carved and pulled from a single block of linoleum. Each colour is cut away and printed in turn, the block gradually reduced — the more the print nears completion, the less of the block remains.

Picasso called them suicide prints: if the piece is not working, there is no going back to an earlier state. Every impression in the edition lives or dies with the block that made it.

Hover each step to see that stage of the print.

01Sketch in India ink
02Ink the block
03At the press
04Layers 1–3 laid down
05Mask layer 4
06Print layer 5 through a mask
07Layers 4 & 5 complete
08Ink layer 6
09Layer 6 complete
10Dry between layers
11Stencil layer 7
12Carve for layer 9
13Ink layer 8
14Layer 9 printed
15Near the finish line
16The finished print

About the artist

Kate Goetz

Kate Goetz is a Czech-born Canadian printmaker and the founder of Blue Chisel Studio. A lifelong artist with a Fine Art degree from the University of British Columbia, she has been pulling reduction relief prints by hand since 2005.

Her work draws on two landscapes. The first is immediate — the mountains and wild country of interior British Columbia, where she lives and works. The second is inherited — the forests and folklore of the Czech Republic, where she was born.

"I love every aspect of this challenging and rewarding process — one that still offers so much to be discovered."

Contact

Write to the studio.

For commissions, enquiries about sold-out editions, exhibition requests, and general correspondence — or to be the first to hear about new work.

Direct

Blue Chisel Studio

bluechiselstudio@gmail.com
@kategoetz.bluechiselstudio
British Columbia, Canada

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Blue Chisel StudioA Virtual Gallery

Small editions. Carved and pulled by hand. Never reprinted.

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