Rat Tenets

1-4/4 Linoleum relief cut prints on rice paper

This was an assignment: Create 4 editions of a linoleum relief cut print.

This composition consists of a rat, mouth agape, grasping cheese, while also being flanked by cheese. Blackletter script surrounding the illustration reads "Eat Cheese & Sin." This reflects the behavior of a rat loosely. Rats eating cheese is merely a stereotype, and describing their actions as sin depends on them being pests. Eat cheese and sin, when taken literally is moreso a hedonist message. Consume and enjoy cheese, and do things others unjustly label as inherently evil. I like to eat cheese. I'm a typically masculine presenting demisexual person, married to a trans man. The Baptists that raised me, taught me that everything I am now is inherently evil, simply because of the fact that their god demands they think so. Prejudice is their belief system; I revel in the fact that I can so freely disobey them, as the rat, and enjoy what scraps have been left for me in the bottom caste, like the rat. This design aims to illustrate the freedoms of rat tenets. The professor instructing the class at the time, suggested the element surrounding the script.

See details below.