Dina Hoeynck
Printmaker and teacher

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Artist Bio
Dina Hoeynck is a Shaker Heights, Ohio based artist and art educator working in printmaking and social practice disciplines. She earned her B.F.A. in Printmaking and Drawing from Washington University in Saint Louis, and her M.A. in Art Education from Case Western Reserve University. She currently teaches art in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, where she leads her students in collaborating on large scale site-specific installations; previous projects include installations at Rooms to Let and IngenuityFest. As a printmaker, she works primarily in woodcut, linocut, and letterpress, which she editions at Zygote Press in Cleveland, Ohio.


Artist Statement

I am interested in quiet, solitary, everyday moments; the unguarded downbeat captured in a candid photograph, the accidental turn away from or back toward the camera. In my current body of work, I translate images from photographs of my daughter to linoleum block prints. The intensity of the medium memorializes these otherwise ephemeral moments of childhood, setting them apart from the mundane experiences of our daily lives. The sweetness of watching a child grow is a tempered one, as each new milestone marks the passage of time for us all. Never have I had a keener sense of the fragility of life since becoming a mother, and I hope that my work captures some of that bittersweet tension.

My process begins by sifting through my personal photographs and finding images that resonate for me. I modify each photograph digitally, print it, and transfer it to a linoleum block using solvents. Then I draw over this transfer, deepening the shadows and defining the edges of forms. I stain the surface of the block red and use a set of tiny gouges and knives to cut away the highlights, essentially drawing it a second time. I enjoy how this process of re-drawing, first in black ink and later in white cuts, transforms each image into a more dramatic version of itself. Soft edges get tightened up, hazy areas swallowed completely by ink. The stark black and white contrast and fluttering patterns of the gouge marks elevate the photographs into something more eternal, memorials to the fleeting moments they represent.

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