Offered here is a linocut print of an original artwork by Marcelle Hanselaar.

The image measures 40 x 30 centimeters on 56 x 36 centimeter paper.

Completed in 2020, each print is an edition of 20.

In the artist’s words: As an artist, I look for ways to express those elusive questions of who and what we are when the mask is off, and how we appear when the mask is on. Masks have always intrigued me, both symbolically and psychologically but I expected that I would physically end up wearing one!

During the recent pandemic lockdown, in which I could not travel to my print studio, I began experimenting with lino-cuts because they can be proofed at home. The bold, direct character of the medium and the physical act of cutting all greatly helped in expressing the frustration with the new laws of restrictions of movement.

One of the things we all badly missed was that we couldn’t get our hair cut.
In my print Shield, I imagined a way to solve the dilemma of what to do with our unkempt, long hair by fashioning it into a facemask. In making a mask from our own hair serves us, in a creative way, twofold: as a reclaiming of choice and as a protest against restrictions.

Born in Rotterdam, Holland, Marcelle Hanselaar is one of the most accomplished printmakers working in Britain today. Etching is the art form in which Hanselaar has demonstrated an uncommon facility, she brilliantly exploits the contrast of light and shade that the etching technique makes possible, in order to explore the bleaker, more unsettling facets of the human psyche.