Close Crush refers to the unseen moment when the inked plate meets paper: the printmaker’s magic of positioning these two elements under pressure, calibrated just so, to create something new. Read another way, Close Crush may indicate nearness and adoration, pointing to the early, swooning stage in Humphreys and McMullen’s relationship that ultimately landed them married with a child. Through the double meaning of Close Crush, the artists also signal a desire to transmit intimate moments of life via image and material. In his black and white series titled Cosmic Distances, McMullen places two images side-by-side–a galaxy beside a bush of roses; an eclipse paired with a sunflower. Using a photo intaglio method, he scales the infinite expanse precisely to a bouquet at hand. He lifts these pictures from decades-old magazines and books in which they were perhaps used to illustrate man’s quest to understand nature or the unknown – an attitude he carries forward while also exalting the archaic nature of their original printing. McMullen’s exploration of this imagery began during a state of grief and love having lost his father shortly before Humphreys gave birth to their son Cy. This contrast between beginnings and endings, the weight of patrescence plus the artist’s reckoning with how these events felt cosmically linked, ripples through the work. Shown pictured with Cosmic Distances (Diptych II) and Cosmic Distances (Diptych III). Each sold separately.
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