From Linocut to Linophotogram

Hand-printing photographic negatives from a lino block

For years my practice has revolved around monumental hand-printed linocuts. Every line is carved by hand and every print is produced without a press, using nothing more than ink, paper and a simple glass jar. Recently, however, I found myself asking a different question:

Could a linocut become a photographic negative?

That question led me to an experiment I now call Linophotogram.

Instead of treating photography and printmaking as separate disciplines, I began using the linocut itself as a tool for creating negatives for the historic Van Dyke Brown photographic process.

Rethinking the negative

Traditional Van Dyke printing relies on digital negatives printed on transparent film.

I wanted to remove the digital stage entirely.

Rather than printing a negative with an inkjet printer, I rolled relief ink directly onto my linocut and hand-printed it onto transparent polyester film. The result was a translucent printed sheet carrying the carved image itself.

It is neither a conventional relief print nor a conventional photographic negative.

It occupies an unusual space between both disciplines.

Printing on transparent film

Printing onto film quickly became a completely different experience from printing onto paper.

The surface accepts ink differently, pressure behaves differently, and every pull produces subtle variations in opacity. Some areas become beautifully transparent while others remain dense enough to block ultraviolet light during exposure.

Because every sheet is printed entirely by hand, no two negatives are identical.

Each one carries slight differences in pressure, density and texture, making every subsequent Van Dyke print unique.

From linocut to light

Once the transparent film had dried, I placed it directly onto hand-coated Van Dyke paper and exposed it under ultraviolet light.

Instead of using a digitally generated image, the photograph was created through the physical structure of the carved lino block.

The carved lines controlled the light itself.

The resulting prints retained the precision of the linocut while acquiring the soft tonal qualities characteristic of Van Dyke Brown.

The image was no longer simply printed.

It was exposed.

Building images through layers

One of the most exciting discoveries came afterwards.

Because the transparent negatives remain partially translucent, they can be layered over one another before exposure or incorporated into larger mixed-media works.

Fragments of unsuccessful test prints, partially inked films and experimental exposures suddenly became valuable material rather than waste.

Instead of discarding imperfect prints, I began assembling them into larger compositions where transparency, overlap and stitching generate entirely new spatial relationships.

Failure became material.

Towards The Shelter

These experiments have become an important part of the ongoing development of The Shelter.

The work is gradually moving beyond traditional printmaking into something more fluid—a meeting point between relief printing, photography, textiles and installation.

By allowing light to pass through hand-printed negatives, the linocut no longer exists only as a finished print. It becomes an intermediate object—a matrix capable of generating entirely new images and environments.

This shift has opened possibilities I could never have anticipated when I first carved the block.

Sometimes innovation does not arrive by inventing a new technique.

Sometimes it begins simply by asking a familiar material to do something it was never intended to do.