My process begins with materials– I make my materials, often through printmaking. I reference different textile patterns, but I don’t specifically use any found patterns. This is important to me, because it means that my hand is always present in the work, even when it’s been translated through print. In fact, I spent several years primarily just making materials. And so now they show up over and over in different iterations in my work, and they generate new materials for future works as well. I work to build an authentic visual language that I’m constantly translating, and retranslating. 

I usually start with a drawing. I then scan my drawing, separate the colors into layers, and then those are the files I use to create matrices for screenprints and risographs, which I print onto handmade papers and fabrics. And then I begin to gather different materials and assemble them, largely working intuitively. I’ll go back and forth between sewing and/or gluing different sections, and then responding to those, and then finally embellishing by hand. 

The notecards are the same prints I use in my artworks, riso printed onto recycled cardstocks. The decorative papers/ giftwraps are offset lithographs that made from risographs, which, in turn, were derived from drawings and paper marbling. The collages are studies for larger works. 

You can find my work on instagram @thestrycker and on my website at thestrycker.com