Winding Machinery, Cable Factory

Kevin Fletcher

In an October 13, 2007 review of Fletcher's monotypes at a San Francisco exhibition, San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Kenneth Baker made the following observations:

“North Bay artist Kevin Fletcher has verged on the topical now and then in his masterly monotypes, evoking industrial architecture - and thus, industrialism - in ruins.... Contemporary graphic art does not get any better. Fletcher can stand comparison with Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778), whose etchings of imaginary prison interiors they sometimes bring to mind.Fletcher has added monochrome tints to several of the new prints, enhancing their suggestions of smoky light.”

Fletcher uses subtle color, achieved by using a technique perfected at Atelier 17 in New York sometimes referred to as Viscosity printing or Simultaneous printing for the application of inks, which separate because their different viscosities.

He is able to create an eerie light and depth, emanating from the center of the composition and darkening at the front, as if the viewer is peeking into this factory, viewing the machinery from the outside. This is all printed in one pass through the press.