Fragments of The Sublime

Leonardo Lasansky has distinguished himself in the field of printmaking with his complex technique. Fragments of The Sublime, a triptych, is among his most ambitious and sophisticated to date. Printed from nine plates, the artist has employed a complex layering of techniques—engraving, drypoint, burnishing, sugar lift, roulette, remarque, etching, scraping, chine collé, and soft-ground etching, the latter executed with a boundless variety of materials—corn husk, raffia, silk, cotton, taffeta, shellac, and Dutch mordant acid. Both a self-portrait and a landscape, the work depicts the artist, world weary, gazing out at the spectator from a barren Middle Western landscape as open as the sea. The sitter is simultaneously an insider, a man who intimately knows the harsh beauty of the Iowa prairie, and an outsider, an artist who has traveled the world, spent his summers in Maine, and practices the printmaking techniques of the old masters. This work seeks to reconcile these separate identities.