Printmaking has a long history. In ancient China, woodblock printing was used to reproduce texts and images. The craft evolved through intaglio techniques like etching and engraving in the Renaissance, allowing artists such as Rembrandt to experiment with tone and texture. The 20th century saw an explosion of print-based innovation, from Warhol’s bold silkscreens to Käthe Kollwitz’s political lithographs. Today, with the influence of technology, traditional printmaking techniques are often merged with digital processes – an approach central to Ramon Keimig’s work.
A Swiss artist and designer, Keimig’s practice spans zines, posters, record covers, animations and large-scale installations, all rooted in a DIY ethos. Trained in communication design at FHWS Würzburg and fine art at HfG Offenbach, he is currently pursuing a master’s at IAGN Basel. His work has undergone a striking transformation in recent years: once defined by bright, surrealist compositions, his latest pieces are more subdued and earthy. Though, their organic palettes are still infused with a sense of psychedelia. Spiky thorns, layered textures and abstract engravings – sometimes resembling a flower passed through a scanner one too many times – appear throughout his work, while silver hues and a sci-fi glow lend an ethereal, otherworldly quality. His projects include Rolypoly in the Slaughterhouse, a zine where graphic moments connect through disorienting patterns (or what he describes as an “alien vortex”) and Bent Cold Sidewalk at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, an immersive exhibition incorporating silkscreen, digital prints and found objects.
Keimig moves fluidly between analogue and digital methods, embracing the strengths and imperfections of each. He often begins with hand-drawn sketches, refining them digitally in Photoshop to add layers of complexity. “Mistakes happen more often and can’t simply be erased – which is both frustrating and incredibly exciting,” he says. While he primarily works with an old laser printer, scanner and digital tools, he also experiments with risograph printing, screen printing on raw canvas, and even malfunctioning colour printers that introduce their own unpredictable errors.
In this conversation, Keimig reveals more about his process, and why he keeps returning to printmaking as a medium.
What does your process look like when creating a zine or a self-published project?
In my daily practice, which often unfolds quite automatically and intuitively, a large volume of work is produced. I am only able to show a fraction of my work online, because I produce too much. Especially in the context of self-publishing, creating a book or zine has often been a way for me to organise and structure myself. It helps me give meaning and a framework to the sheer amount of work.
When compiling a booklet or book from my archive of drawings and prints, the process feels more like creating a collage. Especially with the zines I’ve worked on with publishers, elements like atmosphere, a concept, or a poetic expression have come more to the forefront. These often operate on a non-verbal level due to the nature of the medium. At the moment, I’m working a lot on open-ended pieces that carry a hint of narrative and storytelling, compiling the results of my daily drawing practice into something akin to a mixtape.
My approach is intuitive, and many concepts and ideas arise naturally or on an atmospheric level. For example, my last project was heavily inspired by moving to a new place very close to the forest. The zine includes drawings made during walks through forests, meadows and along rivers – in moments of pause and tranquility – as well as drawings later created at home on the computer. All the analogue drawings from these walks were scanned from notebooks and sketchbook pages, digitally edited and collaged together.
It’s a loose collection of drawings intended to create a sort of atmospheric space and a particular kind of resonance. Alongside the idea of narrative, as you might find in music, the zine serves as a foundation for the viewer to fill the drawings with their own individual story.
The themes range from biomorphic plant forms and prototypes to abstractions and architectures associated with science fiction. The idea is to create structures and backgrounds that have the power to amplify individual content and personal stories. It’s an offer to move from the general to the specific and to allow many different and personal, polyphonic interpretations of the work through the zine project.
However, I think the way I approach creating a zine can look very different each time. Maybe the next one will be more narrative and conceptual or even more abstract.
Where do your ideas usually begin, and how do they take shape?
My ideas typically begin directly with the physical act of drawing, whether analogue with paper and pencil or digitally on the computer. Sometimes they also stem from reactions to everyday discoveries or visual material I come across in my life. But at the moment, I’d say my drawings are very non-verbal and not overly conceptual. It’s more like something grows and proliferates, and I often understand and think through it while drawing – or even afterward. I try to give more intention to the body than to the mind. This really changed for me in my personal work. But I think it will always oscillate between periods of research and working more conceptually and through a more automatic approach.
Your work combines analogue and digital techniques. How do these approaches come together in your creative process?
For me, analogue and digital techniques each have their advantages and disadvantages, and I enjoy using both. Sometimes I grow tired of one approach and switch to the other. In the digital realm, I sometimes feel like I get too comfortable, and the lines and shapes become too perfect. I find analogue drawing with my hands to be much more fragile and imperfect, which creates an interesting contrast when combined with digital processes. Mistakes happen more often and can’t simply be erased – which is both frustrating and incredibly exciting.
I often use analogue drawings as a starting point that I refine on the computer. In Photoshop, I’ve created specific actions and filters to make the hand-drawn elements more complex and give them a kind of ‘tone’. Maybe I treat them more like raw material from a sound recording than like a traditional drawing.
I primarily work with an old laser printer, a scanner, Adobe Photoshop, ink and pencil, and custom digital brushes and patterns I’ve created. Scanning, editing, printing and rescanning form a system that allows for very spontaneous and versatile work, even though the technical setup might seem limited at first. But I’m not overly strict about it – I also work with old found colour printers that produce errors, risograph printing and screen printing. I use screen printing for textiles and canvas works, preferring raw canvas that I print on and then stretch. Risograph printing is my favourite for colourful print editions and, in the past, for concert posters. For this I collaborate with risograph printers, but from my university experience, I can operate the machine myself at least on a basic level.
What excites you most about printmaking and self-publishing at the moment? Are there specific challenges you face?
I’m consistently inspired by the freedom and independence of the artistic field, the resulting diversity, the open networking within the community, and the joy of discovering, exchanging and collaborating with other artists. The encounters with often very grounded, helpful and kind people are always a highlight for me.
I love concert posters, zines, self-published prints and self-published comics. I’m often drawn to works that don’t come from the centre of an institutional or commercial context. Personal expression is a key aspect for me, and I think the accessibility of printing and zine-making makes this more tangible. You don’t have to have attended art school, which I find amazing. Many worlds I enjoy overlap, and I constantly discover surprising and wonderful things.
The main challenge is on the material level – staying financially afloat with an artistic and design practice that isn’t solely commercially driven. Last year, I earned less than ever before but somehow managed to make it through while working on some of the most amazing projects and meeting incredible people, especially through DIY structures in music and printmaking/(self)publishing. In the long run, I think this is only sustainable with a few better-paying projects or steady clients, or by improving the infrastructure for selling my printmaking work. Joining the online gallery ‘mepaintsme’, which also runs a fantastic Instagram blog about the B-sides of art, has brought me a step closer to this goal, for which I’m very grateful.
What are you currently working on?
One of my new finished projects is a Tatoozine, which I created with Francoise Tattoo. In it, tattoos were designed by artists who usually draw but don’t tattoo – and Francoise tattoos these drawings. I’m also working on posters for shows in Basel for the Sacred Trickster series organised by @/mental_load_agency/ and will be working on a new album project by the musician LeoniLeoni, where I’ll create the cover artwork and an accompanying mini-zine. Soon, I’ll have my first solo exhibition in a gallery in Basel and complete my studies at the art university this summer. Additionally, there are a few small cassette, merch and record cover jobs in progress, though I don’t have exact release dates yet. However, I still have a lot of capacity for new jobs and collaborations.
What’s next for you? Do you have plans or projects in the pipeline?
I plan to focus on more exhibitions and gallery shows and would love to work in fashion and textiles. Film projects or music videos also interest me, as I’ve done a lot of work with small GIF animations and would like to expand that skill. I hope to engage in more artistic collaborations and remain open to posters, album cover artworks and merchandise for musicians. Additionally, I’d like to participate in an artist residency focused on printmaking.
Completing my Master’s in Fine Arts in Basel and exploring my work in an exhibition context will be an exciting task. I aim to better balance my independent and applied practice to create more financial stability. I’d also like to offer more workshops, work with people, and add a social component to my work by sharing knowledge about zine-making and helping others find their voice in drawing and printing.
I’d also love to work on a narrative project – though I’m not yet sure what that would look like. Maybe collaborating with a writer on a novel, short stories or poetry, perhaps for a film, or independently in the form of an artist’s book/comic or animated film.
I’m always open to inquiries, exhibitions and projects and want to keep surprising myself and staying open. I’ve noticed that my work, both in content and aesthetics, is constantly changing and evolving. I want to hold onto this way of working because I think it keeps things fresh and fun. For me, it’s exciting not to know how my work will develop. A constant in my work, I think, is the connection to music, zines and printmaking and I try to find different ways to use these skills in different contexts. I would also like to find a way for my personal work to support and work with environmental projects.