Main Projects is proud to present Amy Lincoln: Monoprints, a vibrant and immersive suite of 22 large-scale monoprints collectively titled Waves. Created in close collaboration with master printmakers Brad Ewing (Marginal Editions) and Mae Shore (Shore Publishing), this series marks Lincoln’s first foray into monoprinting—a printmaking approach where each impression is entirely unique.
Amy Lincoln is known for her luminous, stylized paintings of imagined seascapes, plants, and celestial phenomena. Drawing from both observation and invention, her work reflects a deep interest in light, color, and the atmospheric qualities of space. Her distinctive use of gradients, repetition, and ornamental patterning transforms natural subjects into meditative compositions that hover between abstraction and representation.
With Waves, Lincoln brings her painterly sensibility to the print studio, using a fully hand-executed process to explore rhythm, variation, and surface in a new medium. Each monoprint was built through multiple carefully calibrated stages:
The lower three-quarters of each composition—the wave forms—was created using five individually hand-painted silkscreen layers. Rather than adding new imagery with each layer, Lincoln and the printers employed a reductive method: masking off areas of the image to preserve and reveal earlier layers of transparent ink. The result is a sense of visual depth and subtle movement, reinforced by a sixth silkscreen layer: a halftone pattern of shimmering dots that evokes sunlight glinting on the ocean’s surface.
The upper portion—the sky—was printed from a single hand-carved linoleum block, using a reductive relief process often referred to as a “suicide print.” With each color pass, more of the block was carved away, preventing a return to previous stages. Each sky features four hand-mixed layers of color, and the series spans nine distinct colorways, reflecting a range of atmospheric conditions and moods.
Throughout the process, Lincoln worked closely with Ewing and Shore, carefully mixing inks, adjusting transparencies, and aligning each layer by hand. The result is a body of work that retains the optical clarity and imaginative spirit of Lincoln’s painting practice while embracing the spontaneity and materiality of printmaking.
Displayed alongside one of her paintings, this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see Lincoln’s visual language translated into print. As part of Main Projects’ ongoing commitment to editions, Amy Lincoln: Monoprints underscores our belief in the power of print to foster experimentation, material transformation, and new forms of storytelling.