Leah Kristin Blake

I am a multidisciplinary artist, working with printed and textual matter combined in dynamic conversation with both industrial, and terrestrial materials. The final form of my work finds itself in unfixed assemblages, which in themselves speak of temporality, the archive, and of a fragmented world. I work in contradictions - soft vs hard, balance vs precarity, found vs made. Bringing together etched metal, hand engraved materials and printed matter with found objects and surfaces, my work provokes questions of permanence vs impermanence, fragmentation vs the whole. I work using found surfaces and scrap - prints are on low quality paper and material, pushed through my desktop inkjet printer, with the imperfections that come with this method forming part of the work. For me, it is a sensory exploration and depiction of the experience of my own environment, and the humble nature of my fixations. When these fragments of printed matter, text, and objects are assembled in juxtaposition, they form somewhat of an alternate memento mori; a reminder not of a singular death, but an acknowledgement of our fragile, fleeting existence. The enduring weights and textures of my chosen materials are an illustrative comparison to the impermanence of our existence -- "[...]in an environment where nothing is permanent, we create static artefacts. Mementos of spirit." - Rick Rubin.