press play print

I took my annual September stroll through the Chelsea galleries two weekends ago. An artist friend of mine, Vicki Terry, was in town and we decided to try and hit as many of the galleries as possible before visual fatigue set in. I must confess, I can only handle a couple of blocks of galleries before my brain starts to blur everything together. Okay so now onto the shows that made an impression.

Our first stop of the day was to D’Amelio Terras to view Joanne Greenbaum’s exhibit, Hollywood Squares. This exhibit was one I had earmarked – Joanne is a well-respected New York painter and a casual friend of mine. I had viewed her ink drawings before – they are visually very similar to one-color etchings, but I had never seen an exhibit of her paintings.  Wow, what an impressive display of color and composition. The abstract images are incredibly dense with layers painted in frenzied brushstrokes. Each piece presents a sophisticated knowledge of color theory and a mastery of painting techniques. The exhibit did not disappoint.

Now you may be wondering how Joanne Greenbaum’s exhibit fits in with a blog about contemporary printmaking when she is most definitely a painter’s painter. It’s interesting to look at her work through a printmaker’s perspective. I look at the layers in her painting and wonder how they would translate if she made a litho or monoprint. I begin to wonder what a collaboration between her and Karen Kunc might produce.  I don’t have much time to ponder because we are off to another gallery.

The next show I must mention is the three installations at Pace Wildenstein by Maya Lin. Upon walking in to the gallery, the viewer is confronted by an undulating wave made of wood, all stacked vertically. The pieces of wood gradually form a rounded hump, though the wood itself is simply 2X4s with flat cut edges pieced together at slightly different heights to create the rounded form. The piece is stunning, subtle and minimal, like her rolling mounds of glass on permanent display at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio. There is another piece in the back room worth mentioning – a wire sculpture that resembles a vector drawing. The ceiling space is completely activated by the wire. It reminds me of a single line drypoint, lush in its activation of the space. I remember having a conversation once with an architect that I used to teach with regarding Maya Lin’s work. The architect felt like she was a “one hit wonder”, never producing anything of interest after the Vietnam Memorial. I remember being dumbstruck by the architect’s statement because I have always found Lin’s work to be very diverse and beautiful. It would be daunting for Maya Lin to try to outdo the Vietnam Memorial whenever she showed anything new. I wonder what the architect’s response would be regarding this exhibit.

The last exhibit that I will comment on was at Sikkema Jenkins and it featured new work by Mark Bradford and Kara Walker (both artists are coincidently MacArthur Genius Grant winners). I am a big fan of Mark Bradford’s work I was curious to see what he has been up to. His work didn’t disappoint – beautifully textured surfaces, like old collagraph matrix that’s been through the press one too many times. The thing that surprised me most about the exhibit was Kara Walker’s new work – white on white painted collages. They were a fantastic transition from her cut out imagery – the content and the edge is still present, it’s just masked by the lack of contrast on the structure’s surface. I must admit, I wasn’t really feeling any of her works on paper that utilized multiple colors and paint.

I could keep writing about the exhibits we saw, but I’m afraid I’ve just used up all my free time for the day. Jericho (my son) is now awake and ready to conquer the world once again – or at least his version of it. Overall, we visited about 30 galleries, one coffee shop, and a bodega. I am pleased to report that the fall season is officially under way here in New York and the shows have been diverse and interesting.

IMPACT 6 Multidisciplinary Printmaking Conference, Bristol, UK

Laura Berman and Jill Fitterer, Garden Installation, UWE, Bristol, UK

In September, I had the opportunity and support to travel to IMPACT 6, held in Bristol, UK.  The conference was hosted by the Centre for Fine Print Research and the Faculty of Creative Arts, at the University of the West of England. Over 350 delegates from all over the world were in attendance. Some of our fellow PressPlayPrint contributors were in attendance and presented exhibitions and panel discussions at the conference.

Of the many panels presented, I especially appreciated the magnitude and breadth of topics explored in the panel, “Print in the Social Sphere” in particular “Sustainability in Printmaking”, presented by Professor John Risseeuw, Arizona State University and co-authored by Stephen Hoskins, Centre for Fine Print Research. While their presentation asked more questions than providing solutions, regarding practices and consumption of materials in printmaking, I was glad to hear the issues raised in the context of the conference.

Melanie Yazzie, University of Colorado, Boulder, presented in the panel, “Subversive Multiples: Activism in the Community” Melanie always affirms the importance of story and connecting with others through the telling of our stories.  At the end of the panel, she sang the delegates a beautiful Navajo blessing, thank you for connecting us with your beautiful heart and kindness! Melanie also presented the portfolio, Another New Zealand, Another United States.

There were a multitude of amazing exhibitions presented in tandem with the conference. Wanda Ewing, University of Nebraska, Omaha, presented her series, Hairdos, 103 linocut self-portraits, with Wanda sporting a different, unique, impressive and some hilarious and innovative hairstyles.

Anita Jung, University of Iowa, presented Art Dialogues: Rabbit Saves the World Part 2. This installation took over the foyer at the Ashton Bower Campus and was created over several days with works submitted to Anita from artists and art students in the United States. The resulting exhibition was a playful and adventurous explosion of rabbits and rabbit related prints.

Anita Jung, Art Dialogues: Rabbit Saves the World Part II, UWE, Bristol, UK

I had the wonderful opportunity of collaborating with the mastermind behind PressPlayPrint, Laura Berman, Kansas City Art Institute. We presented the exhibition: Converging Collections: Imprints Celebrated Through the Process of Gathering. Laura has been collecting rocks for over 30 years, and I have been harvesting my hair for over 3 years. Our collections came together in this exhibition with over 1,000 prints.

Laura Berman and Jill Fitterer, Converging Collections: Imprints Celebrated Through the Process of Gathering, UWE, Bristol, UK

detail: Laura Berman and Jill Fitterer, Converging Collections: Imprints Celebrated Through the Process of Gathering, UWE, Bristol, UK

As ever, it was wonderful to meet and connect with fellow printmakers from all over the world. In 2011, IMPACT 7, will be held in Melbourne, Australia and will be hosted by Monash University.

At the end of summer, I was asked to curate a printmaking exhibition at the Arts at Mark’s Garage, a downtown hot spot most gallery seekers start at each First Friday of the month in Honolulu.   The exhibition will follow a show called Slow News, co-curated locally and by a team from New York and comprised of international artists that created pieces about news (late-breaking issues or those that have been brewing for some time, world-wide o personal topics).  These artists sent scrolls, created in multiple media to be unpacked like Christmas presents & hung throughout the gallery.

I was asked to do something to compliment this initial, international exhibition.

ComPRESS, the resulting exhibition,  is a Hawaii-centered reaction to the expansion of electronic communication & the demise of newspapers & printed media.  The “com” refers to communication, community, and also to the computer that is taking over our communications.  Press refers to both printmaking and more traditional newspaper media.

For this exhibition, I allowed an expanded notion of printmaking, meaning an impression is made from a print matrix at some point in the work’s production (traditional fine-art & digital prints, installation, print-video hybrid, photo, photo copy, zine, sculpture formed in a mold, etc. may all be included).

Around 30 artists with ties to Hawaii are participating in comPRESS, and so far tentative plans have all grown to multiple pieces or larger scale works!  Work is being delivered this week and, the exhibition will be installed on the 11th.

The exhibition will be held October 13 – November 21, 2009, with an artist’s talk 6-8pm October 15, Opening Reception 6-10pm November 6, and a Closing reception 6-10pm November 19, 2009.  For the opening, one of our artists is set to play live rock and roll, and we are working on having a dancer dressed completely in newspapers perform.  Throughout the duration of the exhibition, we are also hoping to play a soundtrack of printmaking sounds made by one of the participating artists.

I realize Honolulu is a bit of a trip for most of you, but if you find yourself in the middle of the Pacific this month, come check out comPRESS!

After my last post related to personal progress on my Father Damien print, I thought I’d post what the final, hand-rendered print looked like (above), in relation to my computer-and-hand-drawn sketch (see post below). Information on my process and my artist’s statement for this piece follow.

Process

I created my line work layer first, drawing the main figures by hand while using images of Father Damien, children reaching upward, & clothing from Damien’s time on Molokai as references.  The landscape lines were designed into the work using vector-based imagery in Adobe Photoshop to trace over an actual photo from Kalaupapa.  This was printed & Xeroxed onto transparency.  Although based on photographs from Kalaupapa, the color & texture layers were hand rendered in black India ink onto transparencies using a paint-and-scratch-out technique similar to maniere noir lithography practice.  All transparencies were transferred to screen via photo-emulsion, exposure, & washout and printed in a variety of translucencies of water-based acrylic inks.  Due to selective memory (I’ve worked with 100% rag vellum & water-based acrylic screenprint ink combination before), I’d forgotten that this vellum stretches slightly in-process.  As a result, I ended up printing on Mylar, then registering my original line work transparency exactly beneath it to individually register each print over the line work transparency.  Most prints had to be hand stretched and taped in several areas to make sure each layer registered correctly.  My final image is displayed in a double-sided Plexiglas frame that sits in a stand, so ambient light can enter through the back of the piece.  Due to this warping from the water-based inks & hand-stretching, slight, rolling waves are evident in the paper and appear to emanate from Damien’s figure like rays of light.  Due to the sacred subject matter, I felt this effect was acceptable.

Artist’s statement

I created We lepers with the simplicity, line work, & translucency of stained glass in mind, referencing the Catholic church.  I was interested in the selfless manner Father Damien embraced the Kalaupapa population of Hansen’s disease patients, acting and becoming one with his community while spreading hope & faith and building facilities throughout the settlement.  Simultaneously, I was interested in how Damien’s comportment in acting on equal terms with this community typified the lack of hygiene around others (he was said to have shared food & anointed wounds while he himself had cuts on his hands from his carpentry work) that ultimately led to his contraction of Hansen’s disease and his death.