Paul Weissman

Woodcut/wood/jute, 48" dia. x 1", 2005

(U/Uranium; greek, Uranus, God of the Sky)

Late tech juxtaposed with early tech. Chernobyl explosion and printmaking are both acts of human hands; Black/white= starkness/neutrality of data;

Satellite photo of the Chernobyl radiation cloud over the northern hemisphere 17 days after the explosion.

Can/will we survive our learning curves?

Woodcut/screenprint/wood/jute, 48"dia. x 1", 2005

(C/Carbon; from carbo, latin for charcoal)

Current/future continental outlines infilled with street maps relating to  economic/Detroit, social/LA, and political/Dallas aspects of oil dependence.

(C/Carbon, latin for charcoal) Combustion > global warming > melting ice > drowned world; Tuvalu already being flooded; Black/white = the starkness/neutrality of data;

Form/materials = fragility of earth; What will it take for people to change habits?

Lithograph/etching/screenprint, 28" x 22.5", 2005

(Fe/Iron; ferrum, latin for iron)

I had been working with aspects of Iron relating to weapons, shackles/chains, tools, wrought-iron ornament, blood/hemoglobin, iron-will, bridges/balconies/towers, rust, when Bush's language of WMDs/Iraq-attack hit a fevered pitch, which rang of crusade, influencing my image choices. The US attacked Iraq the week I started printing. Still the most political piece so far.

Lithograph, 22.5" x 28", 2005

(Ne/Neon; from neos, greek for new)

Constellations at the Arctic Circle at the Summer Solstice (ie. 24-hr sunlight) , barcode for neon below.

The ancients put their legends and ethics in the heavens for all to see, while the contemporary night sky is blinded by ads for consummables and entertainment.

Lithograph, 28" x 22,5", 2005

(Pb/Lead; plumbum, latin for lead)

Lead is a cumulative poison, storing in the bones and interfering with mental development of children. Its lead water pipes/plumbing is thought to have been the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.

With this work, I started exploring how to bring the immediacy of painting into printmaking, the successively concentrated images of the female pelvis being created by pouring solvent on a field of ink and "drawing" with a rag.

Lithograph/screenprint/24kt gold leaf, 28" x 22.5", 2006

(Au/Gold: from aurum, latin for shining dawn, after Aurora, Roman Goddess of the Dawn)

About idolatry and obsession, the Golden Calf and hand prints on sacred cows.

Not especially rare nor useful as a material, the most intriguing aspect about gold is the lengths people will go to get it.

Lithograph/woodcut, 28" x 22.5", 2006

(H/Hydrogen; from hydro & genes, greek for water-forming) 

The Trifid Nebula (a hydrogen star-bearing nebula), a cumulonimbus thunderhead, the Bikini Atoll mushroom cloud; the special chemical bonding of hydrogen atoms to each other give rise to the special behavior of water/vapor/ice and the helix-form/function of DNA;

Nature as the archtypal model for creation/destruction gods such as Jehovah, Shiva, Kali, while mankind’s technological applications seem more-often-than-not imbalanced towards destruction.

Lithograph/screenprint/relief, 28" x 22.5", 2006

(Cs/Caesium: from caesius, latin for sky blue, after the color of its spectrum)

A second is defined as 9,192,631,770 periods of radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom. We live by different measure.

We posit a world of scientific absolutes; against this endless march of time, we measure our lives by relativity;

Lithograph/woodcut, 28" x 22.5", 2006

(As/Arsenic; from arsenikon, greek for yellow orpiment)

Known as “succession powder”, king of poisons from Roman times on;

During the Italian Middle Ages, despite his power and wealth, the Borgia Pope Alexander VI took its use to new heights. After the cardinals and bishops he had created had become wealthy as a result of their positions, he and his son would invite them to dinner and poison them with doctored wine, whereby the victims’ estate would be accrue to the pope by church law.

How much is enough?

Lithograph/intaglio/woodcut, 28" x 22.5", 2007

(Si/Silicon; from silex or silicis, latin for flint)

Virtual love and enhanced breasts; blogs as hi-tech personnels;

The media is new, but the message is still the age-old search for love.
 

Lithograph/intaglio/woodcut, 28" x 22.5", 2007

(He/Helium; from helios, greek for the Sun)

Kwakiutl, Hopi, Swedish, and medieval Europe Sun glyphs, with Bobo Sun mask.

The simplest demarcation of race, and basis for racism, is skin color, the consequence of the skin's reaction to the Sun in a race's place of evolution. Races are here portrayed by Sun symbols, while DaVinci’s Vitruvian/(Perfect) Man is portrayed as Icarus, tatooed with the “stowage of the British slave ship ‘Brookes’ under the Regulated Slave Trade Act of 1788”.

Lithograph/woodcut, 28" x 22.5", 2007

(Al/Aluminum; from alumen, latin for bitter salt)

Images of the perfection of technology versus the chaos of war.

A WWII US Civil Defense poster "How to Spot Enemy Aircraft" over an embossed image of a B-767, the plane used against the World Trade Towers and Pentagon.

How to know your enemy, when the plane has become the bomb... ?

Lithograph, 28" x 22.5", 2010

(Na/Sodium; from natrium, latin for soda)

Sodium is required by all animals for electrical impulses to travel down nerve fibers, enabling action, response, and, in us, thought.

Hard-wired as small-band hunter-gatherers for over 500,000 years, how much has our wiring adapted to functioning in the present global economy?

Lithograph/woodcut, 30" x 30", 2011

(Cu/Copper; from Cyprium aes, latin for metal from Cyprus)

The Bingham Canyon Copper Mine/Utah, the Burj Khalifa/Dubai. Half mile deep, half mile high. The biggest man-made hole on Earth, the tallest building in the world. Reach or overreach?

Lithographs/steel/magnets/screws, 28" x 31.6" x 1.5", 2013/2016

(At/Astatine; from astatos, greek for unstable)

Astatine, atomic number 85. The scarcest natural element. So short-lived one cannot collect enough to be seen by the naked eye. Unsupervisable.

When storage containers are necessary, wildness is already gone.

Lithograph, 22.5" dia., 2013

(Sn/Tin; from stannum, latin, which may be for stan, sanskrit for hard)

Tin soldiers, the stuff of boy childhoods. The Battle of Waterloo, the last major pre-industrial, non-mechanized battle - 75,000 French against 118,000 British, Dutch, Belgians, and Prussians, resulting in 75,000 dead or wounded on that one day, 18 June 1815. And Drones, the ultimate video game - the player safe, the targets not.

Should waging war be that easy?

Lithograph/etching/pyrography, 28" x 22.5", 2014

(Fire, of the alchemical elements; as methane, main component of natural gas)

The Susquehanna River Basin - drinking water to 4 million residents, and 50% of the fresh-water source of the Chesapeake Bay.

Fracking - a technique creating a recent bonanza of mining for natural gas, whereby large amounts of water mixed with toxic industrial chemicals are injected deep into the earth, which then percolate up into ground water, streams, and water supply.

National security = water or energy?

Woodblock/etching/pyrography, 28" x 22.5", 2014

(S/Sulfer; from sanskrit sulvere or latin sulfurium, both ancient names for sulfur)

The Tree of Life - the great ash Yggdrasil of Norse cosmology becomes the phylogenetic tree of biologic evolution. Fumes of sulfur, nitrogen oxides, and carbon from state, church, company, farm and home rain down as sulfuric, carbonic, and nitric acid. The original English word for sulfur is brimstone. What goes up comes down.

Lithograph/woodcut, 22.5" x 22.5", 2014

(Ac/Actinium; from aktinos, greek for ray)

Actinide elements are all radioactive, and most do not exist outside of university and government labs, where the existence and working of basic particles are recorded as swoops and spirals within bubble chambers. This piece reflects my awe at the thought that all that we see grows from a handful of elements and physical/chemical laws.

Lithograph, 14" x 11", 2014

(Water, of the alchemical elements)

Hawaii’s mountains catch rain clouds - the source of our water. What soaks into the ground we get to use. The left side of the print maps the valley of development that extends from Waikiki to the top of Manoa, with a bit of Palolo thrown in, whose gutters and roads channel rain into the ocean rather than recharging the ground. The right side orders the uses of what remains: 22% for irrigation of crops and golf courses, 9% for cooling of electric power plants, 7% industrial, 1% aquaculture, 0.5% livestock, 0.4% mining. Public supply consumes the majority (60%), watering military bases, airports, stores, offices, hotels and homes - fire hydrants to drinking fountains, washing battleships to pet dogs.

Much of the usage decisions are beyond our control. Our part to play is at home, where the average American uses roughly 140 gallons of water per person per day. Of the 70 we each use inside, 32 are for toilets, 21 for bathing and washing, 14 for laundry and dishes, 3 for drinking and cooking. Outdoor use is mostly for irrigation of lawns/flowers, then swimming pools, then car washing. This print was purposely sized to fit in bathroom or kitchen, with the hope that it might influence behavior, and our future.

Lithography, 30" x 20", 2017

[Li/Lithium]

This work was initially inspired by research into the element Lithium's role in treating Bipolar Disorder. The resulting image brought up reflections on unity, Barnett Newman's "zip", and the present American political climate.

Lithography/Intaglio, 30" x 22.25", 2017

(Xenon, from xeno, strange, foreign)

This print was initiated by President Trump's "Muslim Ban", but it can as easily stand as a description of xenophobia at any time or place.

Lithography, 22.5" x 27", 2018

In 2016, Transportation represented 27% of U.S. carbon emissions.

In 2017, Amazon shipped 5 billion items to its Prime customers, and 66,131 wildfires burned 9,781,062 acres across the U.S.

Lithograph, 24kt gold 28” x 18” 2019

Lux - latin for light & the measurement unit for illumination, alluding to Tungsten’s use as filament for incandescent light bulbs & x-ray tubes - the visible & the invisible.

The initials inspiration was finding a full-body x-ray of a woman naked but for high heels, and then thoughts about nature vs nurture and “like mother, like daughter”.

By over-printing identical full and two-thirds images carved out of four layers of data - the elements, the human genome, the most influential thinkers/artists over time, and the news headlines since 1970 - the print develops, as do the individuals. Gold leaf highlights the initial inspirations, as well as the power of appearances.

Lithograph 22.5” x 15” 2020

(Oxygen)

Biodiversity is beyond us humans, longer and richer than we conceive. The Tree of Life is more like a bush, with dead twigs and leaves shriveled amid the green. The Anthropocene is a collision of that web with corporate/inventor genealogies, and the fabric is now being rended a thousand times faster.

Prochlorococcus marinus is a single species of plankton responsible for 20% of the Earth’s oxygen. What about all the species we don’t know? Are we going to stumble upon them before it is too late?