Black Slate on Hahnemuhle, Monoprint, 24 x 42cm
My practice explores the relationships between matrix, medium, substrate and artist through a close engagement with material processes. I approach printmaking as a site of entanglement, an ongoing negotiation between bodies, surfaces and environments, where each interaction leaves a trace and alters what follows.
‘Synchronous’ extends this investigation through hydro printing with black slate stone pigment, a quarried stone that has been cut, processed and circulated as an architectural surface. Slate itself is formed through immense geological pressure over deep time, yet in its commercial form it becomes a standardised material embedded within systems of construction, extraction and global trade. Its dense, relatively non-porous surface resists absorption, causing the particles to remain suspended momentarily before being picked up by the paper and leaving faint mineral traces. The image, therefore, forms at a threshold between movement and resistance.
Working with water as both medium and agent introduces another layer of instability. Water is central to contemporary geopolitical tensions, shaping patterns of migration, resource conflict and environmental precarity. In the water transfer process, fluid movement encounters the fractured surface of the slate, producing marks that cannot fully settle into the fibres of the paper. The resulting image exists as a fragile residue of contact, reflecting the broader friction between fluid ecological systems and rigid political or infrastructural frameworks.
This way of working reflects broader conditions of human existence. Our actions continually shape and transform the environments we inhabit, often in ways that are gradual, layered and irreversible. The changing state of the matrix mirrors the instability and vulnerability of natural systems under sustained human intervention. Matter holds memory, surfaces bear the evidence of contact, extraction, erosion and care.
Caitlin le Roux (b. 1999) is a South African experimental printmaker and artist-researcher living and working in Johannesburg and City of Tshwane. Her work follows an explorative, practice-led research approach. Her practice investigates the artist-material relationship, attempting to establish a co-responsible practice driven by both the artist and the materials involved in her practice. She received her MA in Fine Arts degree at the University of Pretoria in 2025.
Her work has been exhibited in several local and international group exhibitions. Her work was showcased in A Marked Slate (2025) in City of Tshwane, In the Light of Matter (2024) in Gqeberha, Beyond Waste (2022) located in Germany, TAF Paper (2023) in Cape Town, and Under Pressure (2021). She also participated in the Sasol New Signatures Top 100 exhibition (2021).