AchTung – GERtRUde!

ACHTUNG – GERTRUDE! is a multi-layer linoleum block print that gives my great grandmother a symbolic weapon against the anti-Semitic propaganda and government that forced her to flee the country at the age of 20.

The layout, colors, typographic design, and accusatory hand in the print is taken from an anti-Semitic propaganda poster from Nazi Germany that originally read “ACHTUNG – JUDE!”, meaning “Danger – Jew!”

I altered this propaganda poster to further highlight the personal injustice my great grandmother faced because of the Nazis, but I refused to leave her helpless in the image, instead providing her symbolic weapon to combat the fascism this poster represents.

Now, the poster reads “ACHTUNG – GERTRUDE!”, emphasizing the individual harm caused to my great grandmother Gertrude, her family, and others who fled or died at the hands of the Third Reich. In place of an anti-Semitic depiction, I’ve put my great grandmother’s passport photo; in this way, the print is reflective of two government documents: the propaganda poster which represents the political changes that forced my great grandmother to flee, and the passport that allowed her to flee.

On top the passport photo, I layered an image of my great grandmother’s hand in the midst of wheel-throwing pottery later in her life, which reaches to the similarly clay golem, a creature in Jewish folklore that was created to protect oneself from persecution.

Emblazoned on the golem is the Hebrew word “emet,” meaning “truth.” Thus, my great grandmother is given, through her own artistic practice, the power to protect herself against the fascism that scarred her early life.

The design for this print was originally mocked up in Photoshop and Illustrator, and the image of the golem was 3D modeled separately in Fusion 360, rendered in Adobe Dimension, and then brought into the design.

The print ultimately consisted of three different linoleum blocks: one for the yellow-green hand, one for the red background and text outlines, and one for the black linework.

I traced each element of the design, transferred them onto the linoleum blocks, and then hand-carved each block so that I could ultimately create one unified print.