Miguel A. Aragón: New Editions
Miguel A. Aragón signs editions with printers Riche Peña (left) and Alyssa Ebinger (right)
Flatbed is excited to announce the publication of six new prints with Mexican-born artist Miguel A. Aragón. Aragón, who lives and works in New York City (USA) and Berlin (Germany) has exhibited internationally at venues including the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, NY; Uferhallen, Berlin, Germany and the Society of Northern Alberta Print-Artists, Canada. His awards and residences include NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship; KALA Art Institute, Berkeley, CA; Zygote Press, Cleveland, OH; and Till Richter Museum, Buggenhagen, Germany.
Previously Aragón worked at Flatbed in 2016 creating three editions of woodcuts and an etching. Aragón’s works explore subjects of violence, transient and/or persistent memory, perception and the multiple; he uses erasure as language through the use of processes that are reductive in nature. His work is held in collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago; and Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Aragón’s new cycle of works includes two chiaroscuro woodcuts and a suite of color lithographs. The woodcuts take his exploration of the erasure and destruction of a human image into color. Known for using crime scene photos of victims, he translates the pixelated photographs into what seems to be disintegrating forms. For these woodcuts, Aragón used a centuries-old woodcut technique called chiaroscuro woodcut to introduce color. Carving three blocks for each image with a variety of electric drill bits, he produces woodcuts with layered, modeled forms printed with variations of reds and blacks. The new woodcuts titled “MUERTE (DEATH)” and LIFE (VIDA) were printed in editions of 12. Their images are each 23 ¾ x 17 ¾ inches printed onto 26 x 36 inch Rives BFK paper.
Aragón also created four editions of lithographs at Flatbed which contrast in content and execution with the woodcuts. They are imaged from actual crocheted doilies made by the artist’s mother who passed away in 2019. These representations are titled with dates and codes taken from his mother’s X-rays or imaging beginning with the date of her decline. They hold the page with their poignant linear forms. Beyond morbidity, they celebrate her time, her precision, her love of color and give us pause to enter into moments in her life. Each of the lithographic prints measures 27 ½ x 22 ½ inches and are printed on 30 x 22 White Somerset Satin paper in an edition of 12.
Works by Aragón are available through Flatbed athttps://flatbed-press.myshopify.com/collections/miguel-a-aragon