Interpretation Over Reproduction

Photogravure isn’t about replication - it’s about resonance. 

Here, we explore how the medium prioritizes emotional truth over objective documentation, and how that opens space for deeper engagement.

The Tyranny of the Exact

In a world saturated with digital images—each one sharp, color-corrected, and endlessly replicable—it’s easy to forget that art doesn’t need to be accurate to be true.

Photogravure resists this compulsion. It doesn't aim to reproduce an image perfectly. Instead, it invites interpretation. The plate is inked by hand. The tones shift slightly from print to print. The process introduces texture, warmth, irregularity. In short: humanity.

Where photography promises fidelity, photogravure delivers feeling.

The Maker as Interpreter

Every step in the photogravure process is a moment of choice. 

How much ink stays on the plate? How heavily is it wiped? What paper will cradle the image? These decisions aren’t incidental—they're interpretive. The artist isn’t just reproducing an image; they’re engaging with it, translating it, responding to it.

The result isn’t a carbon copy. It’s a conversation between image and maker. A visual echo of something remembered more than recorded.

This is where the medium’s emotional charge lives—not in what is shown, but in how it’s shown.

Resonance Over Resolution

Photogravure slows the image down. It resists the speed and sameness of modern visual culture. That slowness is an invitation to look longer, to feel more deeply. It creates space for ambiguity, softness, nuance.

The print doesn’t insist on being understood—it waits to be felt.

And when an image resonates, it lingers. Not because it was exact, but because it meant something.