KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Friday, Kansas City Art Institute students used an unexpected tool to leave their mark.
The 20 students created large-scale artwork from a big piece of equipment. They laid a wooden plate down, covered it with a piece of white fabric and then rolled over it with a steamroller.
"We can't make prints this big in our studio because our presses just aren't big enough for it, so it's super nice to get out here and make really big art," said Quentin Laurent, a printmaking student at Kansas City Art Institute.
Over the past week, the students carved their designs into wood using shapes as their theme.
"They had to flip the images, they have to think backwards, they have to have a plan and then go back to the basics and start from zero," said Miguel Rivera, head of the printmaking department.
Their creations are a 15th century-style print.The objective is to give printmaking a modern-day twist.
"A lot of people don't know a lot about printmaking,” said Liv Young, a printmaking student. “They assume you're talking about prints off of a computer, so when they get to see this and you go, ‘this is printmaking,’ you normally see the ‘wow’ reaction.”
One of the prints will be featured inside Lead Bank in downtown Kansas City. The bank partners with the Kansas City Art Institute, and students used the parking lot for the project. Students said it gave people walking by a chance to catch a glimpse of the printmaking process.
