Barbara started making monotypes in 1985 and has been working in different workshop since. She now has her own press in her studio in Los Angeles and it was here that she edited there the monotypes included in this exhibition.

“Working on monotype gives me the quality of a print which you can never get with a paint brush. What the prints constantly remind me of is that I shouldn't get too carried away with the painted mark. Monotypes remind me that the surface is really important. Also, when I'm doing a monotype, I'm probably using colours and colour-combinations that I wouldn't use in my paintings automatically. I'd probably fall into the trap of using the same colours all the time…

The way that I do monotype is all to do with layering - one set of colours over another. So you might start with yellow and then overlay it with, perhaps, magenta, which creates brown when it goes over the yellow, and magenta when it goes over white. All of these surprises feed into the eventual paintings. It didn't start off this way when I began with monotypes, but now it is an essential part of the way that I work.”

B.R.