Brick with the Marks of its Own Making and Unmaking began as a copper etching plate coated in an acid-resistant ground, which was then cut and welded into a life-sized brick. A week after its construction, the object was dismantled and the plate etched and printed. The resulting marks serve as a permanent record of this procedural cycle—a physical archive of the work’s making and subsequent unmaking. The entire process was repeated, resulting in two versions of the print.

Critic Gary Michael Dault describes the work as a “wicked parody of high conceptualism.” Here, the etching plates act not as sites for deliberate mark-making, but as “passive receivers” in the service of “idea-art.” Hawrysio follows the tradition of Joseph Beuys and Robert Morris; much like the latter’s Box with the Sound of its Own Making (1961), these prints manifest the hidden mechanics of their own origin. As Dault observes, the pieces shift the focus from the static to the active: “Her printed objects are not nouns, but verbs.”