Xylor Jane

Wingate Studio is pleased to announce Cat Hearts, its second collaboration with artist Xylor Jane. The portfolio is comprised of six prints in an edition of seven. Each four-plate aquatint etching was created using a one quarter inch grid to apply ten thousand three hundred fifty five dots of sugar lift onto three copper plates. These plates were inked in red, yellow, and blue, which when printed together create the seven hues of the rainbow. The fourth plate serves as the background and was etched in a three-step gradient, moving from lightest in the center to darkest on the edges. The resulting etchings are intricate ROYGIBV rainbows of expanding heart shapes mirrored in quarters. 

Each print in the series features a different background color, either red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or violet, on top of which the primary color dot plates are printed. The simple act of shifting the hue beneath the seven colors of the rainbow results in a series of enigmatic images that offer vastly different emotional and optical experiences in the relativity of color. 

Color is central to the Jane’s work. Here, the artist has created bands of color progressions using her own subjective system. The colors have a specific order and relationship, from red to orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and finally to violet. She uses these bands of color in varying widths and orientations to visually create both the grid and the numbers. Here, the numbers are distinguished by the thinner bands of color that are oriented horizontally. The vertical wider bands of the same colors create the background. The result appears at first to be pure geometric color abstraction, until the viewer’s eye begins to follow the patterns that reveal the number system.

The entire range of is created using 3 plates, each inked with a primary color. The plates vary in density depending on the etching time, thus affecting the color relationships. When combined, the plates mix in different proportions to create the full 7 color rainbow. The means are deceptively simple, but the result is a complex and mysterious adventure for the eye.

In the Studio

Xylor Jane (b. 1964) was born in Long Beach, CA and lives and works in Greenfield, Massachusetts. In her work, Jane orchestrates thousands of tiny dots into complex chromatic, spatial, and numeric systems-based paintings. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions internationally, including at the University Museum of Contemporary Art, Amherst, MA; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; Canada, New York, NY; Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles, CA; Campoli Prest, Paris; Almine Rech, Paris; Four, Dublin; among others. Her work is permanently held in the Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy; Hall Collection, Reading, VT; and University Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA; as well as private collections internationally. Jane earned her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 1993 and is represented by Canada Gallery, New York, NY and Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles, CA.