About the Artist

Jace Laakso

I grew up in rural New England, the son of immigrant parents. Having contracted polio as an infant, I was hospitalized and spent a great deal of time looking at my surroundings. This gave me an appreciation of a valuable lesson I learned in art school: seeing instead of looking. Porvoo and Hartola are reduction relief prints. The process involves using a single linoleum block to carve away a layer at a time as each successive color ink is applied until finally at the last color, most of the block's surface has disappeared.