Jean Dibble

Biography

Jean Dibble studied printmaking as a student. She has wide-ranging interests and her practice includes printmaking, painting, drawing, digital media, and the mixing of these media. She is one of the founders of the Mid America Print Council, a group dedicated to fostering the best in printmaking via conferences, exhibitions, research, and a journal.

Professor Dibble is a Professor at the University of Notre Dame where she has been since 1989. Dibble has consistently investigated new technologies of image reproduction and exploited their possibilities. Bodies of work include: “Another Kind of Examination” and “First Paradigm," both an exploration of the feminine and its culturally defined identity, and “The Life In Physics," a response to the developments in physics since the turn of the 20th century and the consequent difficulty the layperson has in understanding it. Unlike the straightforward Newtonian paradigm, the new physics defies normal intuition: the sixth dimension is accessible only through mathematics. All use mixed print technologies. “The Library is on Fire," a body of work dedicated to the theme of the fragility of our cultural heritage and accumulated knowledge. The metaphor of fire in this project represents an irretrievable loss. This project combines painting and digital printmaking.

The print/drawings shown here are part of the body of work titled “Passages.” Two forms of the meaning of passage are woven into a single work, with each part imparting meaning to the other. Texts are drawn from a wide variety of writing and woven into the silhouettes of the forms of passage.