Ignes Fatui

Boris Margo

The experimental printmaking technique called "cellocut" was created and named by Boris Margo. In the original cellocut method, liquid celluloid (plastic that has been dissolved in acetone) is poured onto a rigid support backing, such as Masonite or plywood. Once solidified, the plastic can be textured, raised into relief, and worked with various tools. It can be engraved, scratched, sanded, and filed; the plate can be worked with woodcut or intaglio tools. These tools include any type of gouge, file, knife or blade that can scribe lines, textures or facilitate removal of the surface to create a “high and low” profile. The high profiles will print, the low will resist inking.

The resulting plastic plate can be printed either as a relief or as an intaglio plate, or even both. It can be printed alone or in combination with other techniques. Thin layers of plastics can easily be placed on top of intaglio plates and printed as a single unit. This opens completely new forms of prints and can lead to the development of series works that utilize similar forms and textures. There is virtually no limit to the variety of prints you can create using as a basis one cellocut to which you add found texture sections.

This color cellocut, "Ignes Fatui" is a revision of an earlier print, "Floating Objects Illuminated #2" from 1934. It was created by first using a celluloid plate, broken in the upper left for the blue. Margo then used 2 more plates, cellocut on Prestwood, coated with cellocut varnish, one red and one yellow.

"Ignes Fatui (Will-o'-the-Wisp) is a light that sometimes appears in the night over marshy ground and is often attributable to the combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter.