Stratovolcano: A New Woodcut
by Nate Lowman

In his first woodcut, Nate Lowman revisits a motif that captured his imagination over a decade ago and is the subject of a large-scale 2021 painting by the artist: brooding lava erupting over Mount Merapi, an active stratovolcano in Java, Indonesia.

Lowman making Stratovolcano (2023) at 10 Grand Press in Brooklyn

Lowman made Stratovolcano (2023) at 10 Grand Press in Brooklyn, where he worked with master printer Marina Ancona to explore different printmaking techniques. Photo by Marco Anelli

Lowman made Stratovolcano (2023) at 10 Grand Press in Brooklyn, where he worked with master printer Marina Ancona to explore different printmaking techniques. Photo by Marco Anelli

Stratovolcano

A woodcut by Nate Lowman, titled Stratovolcano, dated 2023.

Nate Lowman

Stratovolcano, 2023
Six-color woodcut on Rives BFK paper
15 3/4 x 22 5/8 inches (40 x 57.5 cm)
Framed: 18 1/8 x 25 inches (46 x 63.5 cm)
Edition of 20, 5 AP
Inquire
A newspaper page from the Guardian Weekly that Lowman has saved since 2014

A newspaper page from the Guardian Weekly that Lowman has saved since 2014. Courtesy the artist

A newspaper page from the Guardian Weekly that Lowman has saved since 2014. Courtesy the artist

The work features a depiction of a found news photograph showing the Mount Merapi volcano that has erupted regularly since 1548.

Lowman discovered the image in an issue of the Guardian Weekly in 2014, which he held onto for seven years and first depicted in his own work in 2021.

Struck by the alchemy of translating a thumbnail-sized printed image into a vastly different scale by hand in oil paint, Lowman painted Stratovolcano (Merapi) (2021), followed by a smaller scale oil on paper work, Paper Merapi (2021).   

Nate Lowman, Stratovolcano (Merapi), 2021

Nate Lowman, Stratovolcano (Merapi), 2021

Nate Lowman, Stratovolcano (Merapi), 2021

Lowman’s work both acknowledges and revels in the increasing instability of culture, and the ongoing fragility of history and historical images.

—Matthew Higgs, director and chief curator of White Columns

Lowman’s gestural marks are printed by woodblock to demarcate the sky and terrain. In the final work, this scrawled image is printed atop richly inked fields of color.

Lowman’s gestural marks are printed by woodblock to demarcate the sky and terrain. In the final work, this scrawled image is printed atop richly inked fields of color.

Lowman’s gestural marks are printed by woodblock to demarcate the sky and terrain. In the final work, this scrawled image is printed atop richly inked fields of color.

A trial proof of Stratovolcano on the press.

A trial proof of Stratovolcano on the press.

A trial proof of Stratovolcano on the press.

With the woodcut, Lowman returns the image to its printed origin and goes one step further by harkening back to a centuries-old process that long precedes the advent of commercial printing.

Working with master printer Marina Ancona at 10 Grand Press in Brooklyn, Lowman overlaid the base image of the volcano with a projection of a hand-drawn rendition of the original news photograph, demarcating the sky and terrain with gestural, scribble-like shading and markings.

Lowman signs the edition at 10 Grand Press.

Lowman signs the edition at 10 Grand Press.

Lowman signs the edition at 10 Grand Press.

Exploring the tensions at play between printmaking, drawing, painting, and photography and the commercially printed image, Lowman’s return to this iconic image exemplifies his ongoing interrogation of the meaning and proliferation of images over time.

Nate Lowman, Stratovolcano (Merapi), 2021

Installation view, Nate Lowman’s Stratovolcano (2023)

Installation view, Nate Lowman’s Stratovolcano (2023)

I’ve always been intrigued by woodcut printing. I liked the idea of a photographic image of severe rupture that I had rendered in vibrant, poisonous minerals being pushed back between planks of wood with layers of ink in one of the oldest printmaking processes.
—Nate Lowman

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