Photoetchings
The Photoetchings series (2012-2018) emerged through an intricate engagement with the printmaking workshop at Loughborough University, facilitated by printmaking tutor Pete Dobson, where Ruocco experimented with the translation of automatic drawings—made while listening to lectures—into etching plates via a complex process involving digital photography, image editing, photo-sensitive emulsion, and acid etching on copper.
These works were not straightforward reproductions but entailed an ongoing negotiation with the limitations and affordances of the workshop’s furnished space. The instability of the process, including recurring issues with exposure and etch resist adhesion, often resulted in surprising and non-reproducible outcomes, which revealed the irreducible contribution of the workshop’s material arrangements to the work’s emergence.
Designed as a rule-based procedure that invited others to select the source drawings, the series deliberately questioned authorship and highlighted the labor of maintenance and technical adaptation. The repeated breakdowns and adjustments foregrounded the workshop not merely as a site of production but as an active participant in the process, performing a kind of labour of its own.
Louise, 2012, hotoetching on Fabriano Rosaspina paper,
approx. 50 x 35 cms
Simon, 2013, photoetching on Fabriano Rosaspina paper,
approx. 50 x 35 cms
Gauthier, 2013, photoetching on Fabriano Rosaspina paper,
approx. 50 x 35 cms
Aria, 2013, photoetching on Fabriano Rosaspina paper,
approx. 50 x 35 cms
Christian, 2014, photoetching on Fabriano Rosaspina paper,
approx. 50 x 35 cms
Anna, 2018, photoetching on Fabriano Rosaspina paper,
approx. 50 x 35 cms