Literature

Durham Press is pleased to present their first project with artist Jacob Hashimoto, Lemmata, a portfolio of five hard

ground etchings with aquatint. The prints, which are available as a set or individually, each measure 27 1/2 x 27 5/8 inches

and are published in an edition of 25.

Each of Hashimoto’s Lemma (a mathematical theorem that validates a larger proof; the singular form of “lemmata”)

resembles a diagram for one of his wall sculptures. Composed of thousands of handmade bamboo-and-paper kites that

have been suspended with strings, these sculptures invite associations with painting and textile. While his diagrams are the

starting point for these kite sculptures, Hashimoto presents the prints as finished artworks themselves. Each image is both

a metaphorical building block – even cornerstone – of a yet to be constructed object as well as the object’s barest, most

essential form. At once complete and preliminary, the Lemmata explore the creative process of how ideas take shape and

progress.

Like Hashimoto’s kite sculptures, the prints are informed by and expand on the landscape genre. Rather than presenting

a single orderly expanse, he creates “collages of different types of optical space,” with references to landscape-based

abstraction, modernist utopian architecture, and virtual environments such as Minecraft and Google Maps. Lemmata’s

precise lines, initially hand-drawn by Hashimoto and transferred to AutoCAD, relate to these computer generated worlds.

Areas of plate tone and aquatint – a much less mechanical process – contrast with the exactness of the etching by revealing marks of hand production. The artist employed both digital and centuries-old techniques, calling attention to past and present representations of landscapes, as well as the technologies that have inspired and propagated them. The prints consider how our notions about landscapes are constantly changing, as is how we understand and interact with our surroundings.