Spectrum Series

Object Name: Series of six collagraphic prints (colour relief prints) titled Spectrum 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Title: Spectrum Series

Date: 1970

Description: A set of 6 prints composed of geometrical shapes, hues of the spectrum, and a neutral ground densely packed with organic shapes.
The spectrum / circle has an overlay of translucent gold which is different in each print.
The centrally placed signifying form is the lower case letter i. The sign mutates through each of the six prints.
Spectrum, a meditation on identity, proposes that identity is multiple and mutable.

In the late 1960s Lynn moved away from the highly technical traditional mediums she had used, to explore more democratic materials and processes (processes that were easily available and inexpensive). Whereas contemporary conversations concerning NZ art focused on constructing a national identity through the land and its fauna, Lynn engaged a global conversation concerning the nature of identity, which she proposed as"difference" through her notion of mutating and/or "multiple Is"(identities). Consequently in 1970 she printed Spectrum taking as its signifying form, the lower case letter 'i' ----a sign used by children. The sign mutates through each of the six prints, it's meaning embodied in the process, construction, materials and use of the low tech medium Collagraphy. The collage process taught to children is also called colour relief printing.

"Shallow space" is indicative of the artists concerns related to her conversations about space at the time (see Greenberg and others). The ground in her collagraphic prints is a maculated surface arrived at from processes she developed to accept "the given" in the work process and to break down and go beyond traditional codes bounding printmaking processes. As Hayter was working in Paris, Lynn developed editions of prints in which the random elements offered by materials and tools in the printing process were given value, thus she created editions of 10 prints as series, all slightly different and signed AP (artist's proof). As Lynn said at the time, her editions fitted the space between the print and painting.

Inscriptions: Signed V Lynn, dated 1970

Size: 1010 x 550 mm

Where Made: Te Moana Studio, Geraldine, South Canterbury, NZ

Where Used: 1970 - 2009, christchurch ( Cleaven's Art Gallery ) ; Akaroa (Bossard's Art Gallery) ; Dawson's Art Gallery, Dunedin; Auckland , New Vision gallery; Bett Duncan Gallery Wellington

Condition: Good

Condition Description: Framed white laquered wood, glazed

Current Location: Kenwyn Studio Wellington