Glenn Ratusnik
Biography
Glenn Ratusnik makes etchings of once-natural landscapes perpetually altered and transformed through human interventions. Ratusnik sees the topography of the etching plate as comparable to the thin crust of the earth. Deploying a traditional printmaking process, he successively reworks his plate to present a metaphor of how humans transform the landscape. The result is a suite of images that conveys meaning through not only content, but process.
"I work with images of the landscape as metaphors for time and change. Our relationship with the land is reciprocal. We can alter the land and change the view. The landscape we see can affect our interaction with it.
"I see the topography of the etching plate as being similar to the thin crust on which we live. For a time it retains the marks of our presence and the effect we have on it. I react to these marks by erasing them, burying them or building upon them to get to the next image. The printing process then records the images as evidence of the journey and the transformations between printings can be observed."
Glenn Ratusnik received his BFA in Printmaking from Kent State University. He has shown at Notre Dame College, Cleveland, OH; FAVA Gallery, Oberlin, OH; Bay Arts, Bay Village, OH; Zygote Press, Cleveland, OH, Visible Voice, Tremont, OH; and more.
