Liberate, Limited Edition by Alantherock: An Open Hand

Liberate by Alantherock is a limited edition art print of an open hand reaching up towards a dark flower, with a band of olive colour lying between them. The fingertips touch the colour. The flower rests on its far edge. The hand and the flower never meet.

Liberate by Alan Pedersen, Alantherock, is a mixed media limited edition art print made from acrylic paint, drawings, textures, photographs and graphic shapes. It shows an open hand, a dark flower on a spined stem, and bands of olive and lilac between them. It is limited to 500 signed and numbered prints on Fine Art Freja paper at 265 g.

The Hand Reaches the Colour, Not the Flower

In Liberate, the hand and the flower never touch: a band of olive colour sits exactly between them. Follow the hand upward and the tips of its two longest fingers run just over the lower edge of that band. Follow the flower down and its lowest petals rest on the upper edge.

Measured on the image of the full sheet, the band is about a fifth of the sheet deep where the two come closest. That is the whole distance between them, and none of it is empty. The hand is inside a colour, with the flower just beyond it.

So the picture is not quite of a hand holding a flower, and not quite of a hand that has dropped one. Alan Pedersen's own description offers several readings and asks which one is yours: letting go of a situation or of someone, perseverance that ends in achievement, the pursuit of something that keeps its distance, release from a restrictive past, or simply reaching out.

An open hand is the one gesture that fits all of them. It is the shape a hand takes just after it lets go, and the same shape it takes just before it closes on something. Nothing in the drawing says which of the two moments this is.

A Cut Flower and a Hand With No Arm

Neither the hand nor the flower in Liberate is attached to anything. The flower's stem curves away to the right, set with small spines along its length, and ends in a frayed tip in open air above the lilac. It is not growing from anything, and nothing is holding it.

The hand has no arm. It rises out of a sheaf of long strokes that come up from the bottom edge of the sheet in olive, pink, teal and black, the same colours as everything above it. The flower is drawn in a teal so deep it reads as black, with a spiral at its centre.

The hand is not empty either. Down the wrist runs a dark teal shape, the deepest fill anywhere in the hand, and along both of its edges lie narrow strips of grey, grainy texture. They are where the photographs in its mixed media are easiest to see. Behind everything, pale grey discs drift across the ground.

Breathless by Alantherock draws a pair of lungs and leaves the person out. Liberate does the same with a hand. Neither picture shows a face, both are built from the same mixture of paint, drawing, texture and photographs, and both come with a description that offers its readings and lets them stand side by side.

A Verb, Five Hundred Times

Liberate is titled with a verb, and it is limited to 500 signed and numbered prints. A verb needs someone to do it and something to do it to, and this title names neither.

If the hand has only just opened, the flower is what has been set free. If the hand is still reaching, the hand is the one working its way loose, and the flower is where it is headed. The title holds either way the picture is read.

Every print is signed by Alan Pedersen and marked 1/500 beside the signature, in the bottom right corner. It is one of only eight limited editions NOKUKO holds, and its product page describes it as an exclusive print.

Two sizes are offered, 30x40 cm and 50x70 cm, both on Fine Art Freja paper at 265 g to bring out the colours. The frame in the product images is for illustration only.

Most pictures of a hand and a flower are about giving: a flower offered, a flower received. Liberate keeps the two a band of colour apart, and lets that colour do the work.

It is a quiet picture to live with, because it never completes the movement it starts. The hand stays open. The flower stays where it is.

About Liberate

What paper is Liberate printed on?
It is printed on Fine Art Freja paper at 265 g, chosen to bring out the colours. The original was built from acrylic paint, drawings, textures, photographs and graphic shapes. The frame shown in the product images is for illustration and is not included.

What sizes does Liberate come in?
Two sizes, 30x40 cm and 50x70 cm. Both hold the same composition, with the flower in the upper third of the sheet and the hand rising from the bottom edge towards it.

Does Liberate come in different colourways or editions?
No. There is one version of this print, offered in the two sizes. Every copy carries Alan Pedersen's signature and its edition number in the bottom right corner.

Is Liberate a limited edition, is it signed, and does it come with a certificate?
Yes, yes and no. Liberate is limited to 500 prints and is one of only eight limited editions NOKUKO holds. Each print is signed by the artist and marked with its number, written as 1/500, beside the signature. No certificate of authenticity is issued, because certificates accompany NOKUKO's original works rather than its prints. Its product page describes it as an exclusive print.