In the late 1970s and 1980s, Friedel Dzubas reinvigorated his practice by turning to monotypes and cast-paper works, a direction that grew from his collaboration with master printer Garner Tullis. These processes allowed Dzubas to extend his painterly language into new mediums while embracing the spontaneity and unpredictability of printmaking.

Dzubas’s monotypes reveal a dialogue with his earlier watercolor techniques, often leaving areas of bare paper as part of the composition or lifting pigment to coax white from the support. Brushes remained central to his approach, even in printmaking, producing subtle traces of gesture. His imagery typically took two forms: compositions structured by irregularly shaped color expanses—diluted, translucent, and softened at the edges—or more fluid arrangements of billowing plumes, where saturated pools of pigment spread and dissolved through capillary action. In both, the white of the paper was not background but an active force, illuminating the surrounding color and lending an almost luminous depth.

For Dzubas, the monotype process was not secondary to painting but deeply reciprocal. He noted that while he expected his paintings to dictate his prints, it was often the reverse—the immediacy, improvisation, and directness of the printmaking process invigorated his canvases. His engagement with cast paper expanded this sense of material play even further, combining bold color, texture, and form in ways that traditional painting did not permit.

Together, these explorations underscore Dzubas’s openness to experimentation and his commitment to continually reinventing his visual language through the possibilities of process and medium.