Becky Mutrux

Father/Christmas

The multiplicity of printmaking allowed me to explore my grief in new ways:

1. Father/Christmas: A four-color silkscreen reduction print based on a selfie my Dad took during the holiday. I gifted this memorial image to my mother and siblings, making my father a part of our first Christmas after he was gone
2. Last Christmas: After opening Christmas presents in 2023 I collected scraps of the torn wrapping paper. I had begun thinking about alternatives to the patterned chiyogami I had been using for collage in much of my previous work, and the colorful designs of Christmas I saved presented a great opportunity to integrate this print into my mixed media practice.
3. Presents and Absence: This was my first attempt at installation. Since I had several extra copies of the print, I experimented with hanging it over an empty chair as well as creating a kind of ancestral shrine in a box of wrapping paper scraps and bubble lights. In the end, I used a proof I’d made on newsprint, crumpled and torn like the wrapping paper, in relation to an empty chair, symbolizing both his absence as well as his ongoing presence through the gifts he had given us.
4. AD (after dad): This is an ongoing letterpress project, in which I mark his passing each year by layering the number of years AD over the original screen print. My intention in this performance is both to remember him as well as to acknowledge the way that passing time obscures memory.