Anna McShane

Statement

My artistic practice explores transformation, emotional fragility, and visibility through experimental printmaking processes using lens tissue. Across my work, I use layering, translucency, ghost printing, and repetition to investigate emotional states that are often difficult to articulate — experiences of vulnerability, fragmentation, isolation, memory, and becoming. I am drawn to lens tissue because of its delicate and translucent qualities. The material itself reflects the instability of emotion and identity, allowing imagery to appear and disappear depending on light and perspective. Unlike traditional paper surfaces, lens tissue creates a shifting visual experience where forms remain partially concealed. This interaction with light becomes central to the meaning of the work, reflecting how emotions and memories can exist beneath the surface while never being entirely fixed. My practice is process-led and rooted in experimentation. I build compositions gradually through overlapping prints, fading impressions, translucent layers, and ghost printing techniques. Rather than producing singular stable images, I am interested in creating works that feel suspended in transition. Faces, eyes, and bodily forms emerge through layers before dissolving again into transparency and distortion. Across the works, repetition becomes a way of communicating emotional cycles and psychological tension. Repeated imagery slowly loses clarity while gaining emotional intensity, mirroring feelings of dissociation, exhaustion, and instability. Ghost prints are particularly important within my process because they retain traces of previous images while gradually fading over time. These fading impressions resemble fragmented memory and emotional residue. The eyes frequently become focal points within the work, acting as sites of emotional communication and vulnerability. Through layering and obscuring these forms, I create tension between visibility and absence. Figures often appear partially hidden or dissolving into the surface, reflecting experiences of emotional distance and invisibility. Transformation is a recurring thread throughout my practice. Butterfly imagery, mirrored forms, and shifting colour palettes symbolise movement between emotional states — from darkness towards healing, reconstruction, and renewal. Blues often represent emotional heaviness and isolation, while green tones suggest growth, hope, and freedom. I am interested in how fragile materials and layered imagery can hold both vulnerability and resilience simultaneously. Materiality plays an important role within the work. Wrinkles, distortions, fading ink, and accidental textures are intentionally preserved because they reveal the physical process of making while also reflecting emotional uncertainty. I embrace unpredictability within printmaking, allowing the materials to guide the outcome rather than controlling every aspect of the image. Ultimately, my work with lens tissue explores how delicate surfaces can communicate complex emotional experiences. Through transparency, layering, and instability, I create works that exist between presence and disappearance. My practice invites viewers to slow down, look closely, and engage with the shifting nature of the image, reflecting the unstable yet transformative experience of being human.

Images


Course: fine art

Year: 2026

© 2026 MTU Crawford College of Art & Design
Website by Hurrah Hurrah

Photography: Seán Daly