Portrait of an Artist

For Laurence Scholder, printmaking is the medium that best represents what he calls "the language of my discourse" – the line. "The line can depict a form from nature, divide figure from ground, indicate size and direction, record nuances of weight, or graph a system of proportion removed from any form of representation. It is through the accumulation and collision of the lines that I find what the work is going to become," he says. Normally Scholder works with intaglio prints, in which the images are printed black on white from a recessed design etched into the surface of a plate. His most recent works are etchings printed in relief, in which the linear elements appear as white on black. "An unintended consequence of printing the plates in relief is the way the various elements in the plate are seamlessly merged in a homogeneous surface," he says. Scholder's etchings have been displayed in numerous solo and group exhibitions and can be found in public collections. The professor of art has taught at SMU since 1968. He earned his M.A. from the University of Iowa.

Afar, 1993	Twixt, 2001	Whirl, 1999	Duple, 2001