As an artist I have chosen printmaking as my medium. I get excited about ink and paper. The textures, the successive ink layers, the gentle dimensionality impressions leave on the sheet, the sounds and scents – it’s the whole mix. It is seductive, challenging, often surprising, always exhilarating.
Using traditional and current methods of image & print-making connect me to our past and allow me to speak with contemporary relevance about today's issues. Printmaking and book arts share the same birth mother. Artists books can beautifully showcase a suite of prints; types enrich the work graphically.
Dirk Hagner was born and educated in Germany and received his MFA from the Folwangschule of the Arts, now part of the University of Essen-Duisburg. He moved to the US in the 1980s and lives in California, South of Los Angeles, where he maintains his studio.
He has been working as a printmaking and book arts artist and for 13 years was full-time faculty for printmaking at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, CA.
His work is held in many private and institutional collections.