Melting, 2019

Splitting, Calving, Melting was produced through a direct and elemental gesture: artist Hannah Rowan placed ice onto the scanning bed of a Risograph printer, capturing the material in its transient state as it dissolved.

The resulting image records a moment of transformation: a substance shifting from solidity to liquidity in real time. By allowing the ice to imprint itself through melting and movement, Rowan collapses geological process into mechanical reproduction. The print becomes both document and event.

The title references glacial fragmentation and thaw, processes that unfold over vast temporal scales. Here, those phenomena are condensed into a single surface. The scanner’s glass bed becomes a site of compression where deep time meets technological immediacy.

In risograph printing, each colour is printed as a separate pass through a risograph machine — a stencil-based duplicator that presses organic soy inks into the paper. Risograph inks are naturally vibrant — they are renowned for their vivid colours and evident textures. The inks are transparent so layers build to create more colours. Slight shifts in registration and a soft grain make every impression subtly unique.

Melting is printed on Olin natural white 170gsm, an uncoated, FSC-certified stock whose gentle warmth lets the colours glow. The edition is strictly limited to 100 and will never be reprinted. All prints were produced at the London Centre for Book Arts.