Lika Tov's Website

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Galleries

Welcome to my website

Welcome to my website and to a selected preview of my art.
Using the menu on the left you can navigate through the various collections available on this site to get an impression of the variety of original techniques that I have developed throughout the years. For more information about those graphic art forms see techniques below.
For more information, please contact me.

Lika Tov

Techniques

Assemblages

Three-dimensional art (sculptures, reliefs) made of discarded metal objects attached with nails and screws to a wooden base. Painted with metalic and black paint.

Assemblage prints

Small flat objects such as clockwork pieces and clasps, keys, etc. glued onto a metal plate. Subsequently lines are scratched in the plate with a needle or a pointed tool to complete the image. The plate is prepared for printing as a dry point etching.

Collages

Pieces of paper glued to a paper background. The paper shapes can be plain, colored, printed, textured, painted, etc.

Collagraphs

The printing plate is made of cardboard. Cut and torn paper shapes are glued unto the cardboard background. After the glue has dried, lines are added with a pointed tool (pen, nail, etc). The process also enables imprints of textured materials, coins, and flat objects by placing them on the cardboard under high pressure. Before the printing process, the finalized plate is sealed with a layer of lacker spray or diluted plastic glue. Before the printing, different colors of etching ink are applied to the plate. The excess ink is wiped of with newsprint paper. The plate is printed on special etching paper, prepared for printing by moistening it with water half a day earlier in order to give it an evenly softened surface. This procedure makes the paper flexible that can absorb high pressure without being damaged. The print has to lay flat while drying.

Mixed media

Several techniques are combined for creating a piece of art from different materials.

Monoprints, two methods used by Lika Tov

1) In this procedure, oil paint is applied with a roller to a rectangular glass plate. An image is then scratched in the soft paint. Different nuances are created by the light touch of tissue paper to the oil paint surface. The actual print is produced by pressing art paper to the surface.

2) The image is cut out from thick paper, creating a paper-cut. Lines and textures are added by wrinkling the paper. Oil paint is applied evenly to the paper-cut with a roller and next the painted paper-cut is placed face-up on a background of scrap paper. The smooth art paper is then pressed with the fingertips using the flat side of the nails, making sure that all parts of the paper-cut are pressed. The next stage is carefully picking up the three layers together and flipping them over, while the paper-cut is still sticking to the paper. Next the scrap paper is removed. The negative forms of the paper-cut are without paint. These negative forms and the area around the paper-cut are now colored with a roller. Because of the differences in height between the paper-cut and the background, this process creates a white contour around the colored negative shapes. Upon removing the paper-cut the mono-print is now completed.

Recycled art

A combination of objects of different materials, such as wood, (discarded furniture pieces, using drawers as frames), glass, canvas, broken mirrors, metal tubes, iron shavings, chrome and plastic plumbing materials. These are assembled in an imaginative way and painted in bright colors with oil paint and commercial spray paint.

Roller paintings

Oil paint applied directly onto a flat surface (paper, cardboard, canvas) without being diluted with oil. With different-width rollers the colors are rolled out and mixed on a glass plate until the desired texture and nuance have been obtained. The roller is used as a brush while painting with its edges produces lines. The size of the rollers' width determines the with of the shapes. Some stencils are used in order to obtain different shapes.

Silkscreen prints

Through a screen, covered with news-print paper with cut-out shapes the undiluted silkscreen paint is sqeezed onto the paper, leaving the positive image of the cut-outs on the paper in an even color. For multi-colored prints this process is repeated for each new color.
The screen has to be cleaned thoroughly each time before using a new color. The simple shapes and color scheme make the designs also suitable for knotted carpets.