"End of Innocence"
Click on an image for more information.
Jump Off - Limited Edition of 200 signed and numbered prints.
"Inspired by a return to college after a 20-year hiatus, tattoo artist Matthew Amey's "Jump Off" series encapsulates the artist's personal meditations on the transience of youth and the uncertainty of adulthood.
He explores the implications of these reflective thoughts and feelings with a depiction of the nostalgic sentiment of freedom coupled with stark, gestural strokes and symbolic details. In the enthralling designs, a young adult is suspended mid-swing while birds hover around the tree's branches. The tree represents stability, safety, comfort, excitement, and the all-encompassing love of family, while the birds represent the opportunities and challenges the child will encounter as they reach life's crossroads.
With their strikingly straightforward duality, the pieces juxtapose a child's carefree nature with an adult's projection of the future, using a personal and universal childhood experience as an opportunity for deep expression."
Below are images of the letterpress process by which I created the prints. These pics were taken at Raven Press in Newark, Delaware where the print-run was started. The series "End of Innocence" is now produced on a Heidelberg letterpress at Lead Graffiti, also in Newark, Delaware.
![This is why they're called hand-pulled prints.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52092e8ce4b03ad27ab7adaf/1376932554353-XW3HQC3NF6A22YO1Q8TO/image-asset.jpeg)
![Close-up of the polymer plate and the print on the press.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52092e8ce4b03ad27ab7adaf/1376932577365-9BD803F3ZYA3LPVEGOGY/image-asset.jpeg)
![Prints on the drying rack.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52092e8ce4b03ad27ab7adaf/1376932602842-DZBUUML89KFW2CSLJRLF/image-asset.jpeg)