Aske til aske

Photo: Ink and pencil drawing on water colour paper, 29 x 42 cm

This work is part of an installation exhibited at “På ubestemt tid”, Startblokka Linderud, Oslo, 4th-14th of June 2021.

...from ash to ashes. In this project I explore the wood as a matrix, a heat source and an ingredient for ink. A fallen ash tree in Fagerborg in Oslo was chopped into wood, burned to embers and charcoal. Ash and soot were collected to become printmaking ink for woodcuts and watercolour paintings. I asked the tree what we shared, and it answered carbon.

Woodcut printed on Awagami Kitakata Green paper

There is something magical about watching the black drop of ink hit the wet paper and follow the patterns that form. It pulverizes and crystallizes on the paper. It resembles blood vessels, moss, crystallization. Then it freezes. Sometimes it freezes right where it is at its most exciting, sometimes it bleeds into a black surface. A frozen moment. It's like looking into a microscope with the naked eye. As the world tree melts in my hand, and I remember the story of the ash tree Yggdrasil shaking, warning about Ragnarok, the spreading of Hymenoscyphus fraxineus (ash dieback).

Woodcut (matrix) burnt with soldering iron

I hold the ash cell in my hand, or is it carbon maybe? A cross section of the molecule. I now see that the black is not only black. It is soft, lumpy, silky, shades of hot and cold. The cycle ended when the woodcut was printed with printmaking ink from the same tree...

Artist book "Vi" (woodcut on japanese paper / letterpress by Vibeke O´Rourke (Crowpress))), 15 x 25 cm

Technical info: // // //

Ink drawing of ash ink on water colour paper, 10 x 15 cm

Artist: Hanna Halsebakke

Web page: www.hannahalsebakke.format.com

Instagram: @hannahalsebakke

Exhibition documentation: Øystein Thorvaldsen