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Nick Cave


Best known for performance pieces that incorporate highly textural costumes and dance, Cave also incorporates fiber, clothing, and ritual into his sculptural work. At Island Press, Cave was able to combine his interest in fibers, found objects, assemblage, and sculpture with a social issue, here AIDS, to test the limits of experimental printmaking.

The editioned proejct, MASS, was made from used shirts that Nick Cave assembled and stitched together. The shirts were then coated and sealed with acrylic medium forming the plate which was printed from both the front and back sides, creating a triptych.

In the other project, Virus, also a triptych, the image is a bacterium associated with AIDS. The outside panels are collagraphs made with actual shirts. The central panel is an abstract collagraph with a photolithograph printed on top.

About the artist

Nick Cave is an American fabric sculptor, dancer, and performance artist.


Editions from this project