Passion, perseverance and printmaking

Passion and perseverance are two elements necessary to persue any activity,but especially important in printmaking. Print making requires a sustained state of passion over a long period of time. It is the art form of the Long Distance Runner and not the Hundred Meter Dash.
An outburst of passionate energy at a moment ofinspiration is not enough to carry one to the finish line of an image through the complex labirinth of acid, metal, color and paper. It becomes a fascinating journey of various possibilities that present themselves in continuation. One has to maintain a passionate feeling of the initial idea through this long and devious voyage, and constantly be aware of the pifalls of other passions as one converts his feeling into knowledge into action and vice-versa. The journey becomes even more difficult if the initial idea or subject is, as in this case, a very fluid substance such as 
water.
How does one depict an element so ephemeral and fleeting (ever-changing transformation of light and color) into a static two dimensional image - and still convey to the viewer this concept of rhythmic motion of time? Giovanni Greppi did it by plunging headfirst into this particular technique of multi-plate color etching, which is in its own 
inherent structure very much akin in the dynamics that reflect the concept of transformation, mutation, modification, permutation, modulation, variation and any other action that implies time.
The multi-plate color etching technique differs from the other two dimensional art forms, in its zen-like nature of going not only forward, but going backwards as well as forward. It is in this continual motion of contracting (putting the image together), dismembering (pulling the image apart into its various separate components), seeing the particles in negative (where white means black and 
black means white), seeing the image in positive (where the inkless shape becomes color), seeing in reverse (of what is right on the plate is inverted to the left on the paper), until one is so familiar with all the details (perceived in so many different ways) that it becomes an intimate part of oneself. 
Giovanni Greppi’s quest to depict the mysterious and mystic world of water has led him to printmaking. He has entered this world of multiplate color etching, with all his passion and perseverance, fully accepting this enigmatic challenge of converting a personal concept through the form and color of this process to give us an image on a piece of paper that has the feeling of fluidity and movement in mental time - and by doing that he has become one with his theme and the print.

Swietlan Kraczyna