MAPC Outstanding Printmaker

       The Mid America Print Council’s Outstanding Printmaker, Deborah Maris Lader currently has an exhibition inside Indiana University Southeast’s Barr Gallery. The prints within the exhibition in the Barr are all kept to a certain theme tying human nature and emotion to the idea of nature and specifically birds and flight. There were a total of 34 prints created from 2010-2016 spanning from small to large. While some were intricately beautiful, others were a bit underwhelming.

      One print that happened to stand out was the work Limbs. Its difference in size, style, and technique is one of the many things that make it a memorable piece. Limbs is the largest work displayed, it stretching the wall's length and easily seen from across the room as you walk in. This piece is also the only one not within a frame, which really allows it to breathe unlike the other prints. It is able to branch out both literally and figuratively with the branches on the piece. This print is also a woodcut unlike most of the other prints in the exhibition that are etchings. This allows the work to take on a different feel; it is not as delicate and soft as the other prints, its deep lines and deep contrast allows the work to appear bolder and speak to the viewer on a different level. The print itself consist of 3 female figures standing, laying, and hanging within a mysterious place covered in branches. Their arms, hair, and bodies twist with the branches, making it harder to tell where the bodies end and the tree begins. This work was intentionally made to appear like this to tie into the overall dreamlike feel as well as convey the overall meaning of the tie between humans and nature. This print also looks somewhat familiar as it reflects some of the renaissance works with the way the figures are drawn and placed within the composition, they are correct in enough convincing ways but also look somewhat abstracted as well. The artist successfully convinces the viewer through the spindly branches that the tree is a living and breathing creature just like the spindly figures. While this may seem like an odd piece to be within the show as it is so different from the other works, it is definitely one of the better pieces there and the differences only allow the work to be stronger.

Limbs

Top left to Bottom Right: Mother, Barely Bird, Waxwing, Touchdown

      However, there were prints that did not seem to be as impressive, which were a set of four prints titled Mother, Waxwing, Touchdown, and Barely Bird. Mother has a warm background that shows a mother bird with multiple small eggs within a nest. Waxwing portrays a waxwing bird seated on a branch of a tree that appears to also look like the nervous system of the human brain, a faint human face coming through from the background. Touchdown also has the warm background of Mother but depicts a crane or heron about to land. Lastly, Barely Bird is very faint in line weight and is of a small bird perched on top of a woman’s head. All four were etchings/chine collie; they were all technically well done and had beautifully delicate lines and detail that one probably could not have been able to create in another printing process. Unfortunately, that was the only notable trait about these prints. The works were probably no larger than 5x5 in size and were placed in rather heavy and visually overwhelming black frames to be displayed in. A smaller, more delicate frame might have lent itself to the work and tied in a little finer with the size and delicate lines used within the prints. They were also very simple in subject matter compared to the rest of the show, making it seem less like it belonged in the exhibition and more along the lines of artwork you would find displayed within someone’s home: technically beautiful but not a lot of thought needed in analyzing the work. This disconnect is seen as these works show no apparent extra layers of depth, just simple nice drawings of birds. The other works seem to function in a dreamlike state or a state of consciousness while also utilizing birds, causing them to be more thought provoking. With the combination of human features, attributes, and nature Waxwing was the only print within these four to fit more in line with the rest of the show.

Through the use of figures and nature, Deborah Maris Lader allows the viewer into an interesting dream space of prints that seem intimate but relatable to all viewers. While some were very successful in this, others seemed to be a bit disconnected with the overall feel trying to be established. To see even more of the beautiful etchings by the MAPC's Outstanding Printmaker head to the Barr Gallery, there is sure to be a print there that will connect and stay with any viewer.

- Ashleigh Morton

Contemporary Printmaking in Louisville: InterVentions: Re-Framing the Printed Image at 21c Museum and Hotel

The current printmaking exhibit hosted by 21c Museum and Hotel in Louisville Kentucky is an unexpected gem. In fact curated by an IUS Fine Arts faculty member, the show InterVentions: Re-framing the Printed Image is thought-provoking and multi-faceted. The show is centered around the concept of switching around the meaning of the printed images. With work from 11 different artists the pieces are varied in subject matter and technique but all manage to pose similar questions about the fluidity, identity, and the idea of the place of origin.

Many of these work fall somewhere inside of the idea of the “ready-made” work first coined by the artist Marcel Duchamp. This is to say the artists are taking images from other sources and redefining them. They do this in two ways either by using a found image and printing on top of it as Alexis Smith does in The Twentieth Century #15 (1983) or in literally redrawing and reimagining familiar images as Peregrine Honig does in her piece Father Gander Portfolio (2006).

Peregrine Honig, Father Gander Portfolio, 2006

In this piece Honig uses the image of three classic characters Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, and Goldilocks and places them in their typical setting of a forested path and then gives them a stage to reveal something new using the technique of lithography. She modernizes these one-dimensional Victorian era characters by putting them in the context of contemporary situations dealing with sexuality and innocence, which are insidious elements of the original tales themselves that the artist cleverly brings to the forefront. She does this by animating these characters in ways we aren’t used to seeing them. Both Hansel and Gretel are nearly naked and holding hands. Rapunzel is also barely clothed and holding scissors with a lock of her hair lying on the ground next to her. Cinderella has her dressed pulled up to show her leg. All four characters are looking right at the viewer and their gazes are not shrouded by sweetness. Underneath each circular print there is a handwritten sentence below to further push the audience to see these characters in a new way. The three framed works are accompanied by a fourth frame in which the artist has placed some writing about the trio in a typical story book type print explaining the different voices she has given to these characters.

In a different kind of appropriative style the artist Troels Carlsen uses Eugene Delacroix’s Orphan Girl at The Cemetery (1823) in a painted print and turns her into a bust made of half stone and half wax called Orphan Girl at The Cemetery as Block Candle (After Delacroix) (2014).

Troels Carlsen, Orphan Girl at the Cemetery as Block Candle (After Delacroix), 2014.

Staying closer to the original image of the work than Honig does Carlsen still offers the viewer something new to consider. Turning the subject into a stone bust suggests a kind of permanence and stability, perhaps even indicates trustworthiness. However when the viewer sees the melting candlesticks on top of her head and understands how she is melting her validity is in question. Carlsen’s subtle use of chance truly changes the narrative of the subject within this piece and offers the audience something totally new to consider.

In it’s entirety this show was enjoyable. The pieces were varied and all gave the viewer something plenty to think about. Although the subject matter and applied methods were all different there was an overarching theme that was interesting to consider in each peace. The works chosen from these 11 talented artists were thoughtful and so enjoyable to experience even for someone who isn’t all that familiar with printmaking techniques. Any appreciator of art would undoubtedly enjoy this show.

Deborah Maris Lader Featuring: Against all Odds

           Deborah Maris Lader’s print work features women with strange twisting limbs, perched on tree branches, little girls with holes in them, and a variation of images featuring birds or birdlike creatures.  I selected this for review not just for locality and ease of access for me personally, but because I enjoyed the dreamlike images she portrayed in her exhibit.

The Girl Gets Away, by Deborah Maris Lader

            The artist seems to convey scenes that have played out from some deep unconscious place, and I can glimpse metaphors in her work.  Ideas like change, growth, and events in time.  The bizarre landscapes and characters describe the makings of dreams, and of a place separate from mundane reality, where our ideas flourish but don’t follow the rules of society.  They are warped representations of humanity, of our ideas, our dreams, and our pitfalls. 

            In the etching Against all Odds, one can see a great bird flying forward, to no one knows where, but the tittle suggests a journey, against all odds, that must be completed.  This is similar to The Girl Gets Away, which shows a girl with wild strands of hair leaping up and away from the predatory from of a stalking shark.  Both of these works show a willingness to triumph, to climb new heights. 

Suspended, by Deborah Maris Lader

            This gallery speaks volumes about life, growth, and the celebration of achievement, or even survival.  In Lader’s Suspended, there sits a girl on a floating staircase, a swing popping in from the sky on her right, and a bird soaring up with a slingshot pulled back at the ready.  This feels like a moment in time.  Although the bird could be seen as a potential victim of the slingshot, which seems large and threatening in its size, the scene feels like a remembrance, a memory of past playing in a schoolyard, and the little girl frozen in time, when in reality she will eventually become an adult and leave these games, and the whimsical joys of a child, behind.  Like the bird she was free to spry up on her toes, and lift her wings, but she has to keep flying, and will grow up and enjoy new experiences throughout her time on Earth.

            Lader’s artwork is of a high quality, and it’s obvious that she has placed a lot of effort into her creations, with highly detailed etchings, and many in large frames.  She seems to be conveying the idea of dreams, and of change, and she has done beautifully. It’s easy to see the surrealistic, dreamlike qualities in her work, and the ideas of change.  There is an almost evolutionary quality to her work, such as with At the Edge of His Story, which shows a boy falling forward only to change into a bird.  Uprooted, shows a story of a bird like creature holding a child in a gnarling of roots, another bird creature standing in the top corner, releasing birds from a box.  A path retreats off into the top right corner, suggesting a journey, the future, and of growth. 

            Lader’s work is a beautiful example of the subconscious, and of waking life itself, and of the changes that ensnare us all, with only our own motivations, and will, to break us free from life’s pitfalls.

               

Tactility: Imprints and Traces

                The Art Sanctuary of Louisville is currently the home of Tactility: Imprints and Traces, a collection curated by Deborah Cornell as part of the Mid-America Print Council conference.  While the building itself, located in Germantown, does not necessarily scream “high art,” the pieces inside do much of the talking. The exhibition features a number of large-scale prints from Cornell herself and fellow Massachusetts artist, Barbara Putnam.  This exhibition is worth a visit based on the impressive variety of print mediums alone: Tactility: Imprints and Traces featured both Cornell’s digital prints and Putnam’s woodcuts and hand-dyed printed quilts. 

            The exhibition’s theme or focus is the human imprint on nature.  Cornell’s works feature natural environments and occurrences while Putnam’s seem to focus more on natural interactions, such as that of a human with its natural surroundings.  Both seemed to be offering commentary on the interconnection between all of Earth’s systems.  Putnam’s Summer’s Slow Dance featured the beautiful interweavings of what appears to be plant life and water, showing perhaps that one could not exist without the other.   

Putnam, Summer’s Slow Dance

The process Putnam utilizes for images like Summer’s Slow Dance is both impressive and methodical.  She starts by creating very basic sketches within nature and then uses them as a guideline as she draws directly onto a large wooden block.  Next, Putnam hand-carves a much more detailed image from memory into the wooden block.  Finally, these images are printed on Misu of Japanese rice paper.  This particular piece was actually carved directly onto a piece of wood while Putnam floated in a kayak in the marshes surrounding the Great Pond in Central Maine.

            The theme of the exhibition, how humans affect nature, holds steadfast throughout all the pieces featured.  The focus on both nature and science was also prevalent and rather interesting.  This connection to science could have allowed the works to potentially reach a broader audience, had the exhibition been marketed that way.  The title of the exhibition does not immediately declare the scientific connection, however, Cornell’s use of scientific processes, including many of the Earth’s naturally occurring systems, like airflow, could pique any weather or nature buff’s interest.  Putnam’s focus on the current state of the Earth’s oceans, the human effect on them, and focus on scientific data could have made a lasting impression on the average viewer and particularly on those interested in conservation or ecology.

            While the pieces featured in this exhibition were stunning and the theme coherent and concise, the marketing of the collection truly missed the mark.  By labeling the exhibition as simply a collection of prints with a rather indirect title, the gallery missed the opportunity to reach a much wider audience and in turn, leave a greater lasting impression.  The works and information featured asked all the right questions: how are humans treating the Earth and what irreversible affects have we caused?  But they did not necessarily allow for those questions to reach enough people.

    - Kaitlyn Riley

 (Image Source: http://barbaraputnamprints.com/Gallery/Pages/Wetlands.html#1)

Interventions: Re-framing the Printed Image

Looking back in time, print has always been a way to communicate and document.  From the first construction of books, documentation of plants and animals used for scientific purposes to modern day newspapers and magazines, printmaking itself is hard to define because of its rich history and its ability to be applied across many paths. Contemporary printmakers often seem inspired to create from this abundant past reusing imagery and ideas from previous documents. The exhibition Interventions: Re-framing the Printed Image, at the 21c museum in Louisville, embodies that idea. The exhibit contains prints by artists that have appropriated imagery from many different sources such as magazines, maps and old movie posters and have incorporated them in their contemporary prints. The group of prints curated by printmaker, Susanna Crum, is brilliant and bold. The viewer is guided around the room by the possibility that they have seen some of these elements in the images before.

Alexis Smith’s Twentieth Century #15 silkscreen collage print embodies the idea of “familiar”. This 1983 print implies to be a movie poster from the fifties. An attractive woman laying on a bed with collaged elements, like quoted text and images of the actors and scenes from the movie, are overlapped. Though the image seems familiar, the movie the poster is depicting is not well known or a favorite of that time. The color palette is red, blue and dull white. The woman lying on the bed in the poster, though seemingly happy is introduced on the poster as “Sensual Sabina” and the collaged scenes and elements infer otherwise. Smith’s screenprinted bold quotes in a font choice that seems of the movie poster’s era. The bold quotes  read sentences such as “CONFIDENTIAL!”, “I’ve died so often”, “made love so much”, and “I’ve lost track of what’s real” become confusing throughout the piece because of below elements. These factors imply to be intentional with the theme of the elements in the  piece.  Another collage element on top of this poster in dark blue is the same girl upside down making a gesture as though she is falling.  This piece seems to speak out about women and how they are viewed, especially in film and suggests that this is incorrect and not what “Sabina” is wanting.

The exhibition at 21c also includes Stephen Irwin’s Tracing the Delicate Outline of Our Time Together Over and Over. This large print, made in 2007, is a unique pigment print, this is a process commonly known as monotype. In this process, the printmaker makes painterly gestures with ink on their plate creating their image. Many of the other pieces in the exhibition are busy and full to the brim with information and imagery. Irwin’s print stands out in this space because of its simplicity and contrast. The piece seems familiar because of its painterly nature, as if the imagery was taken from a famous painting. The piece is of two realistic hands holding and coming out of a simple white space. The imagery that was reframed, or appropriated, in this piece comes from vintage pornography, which isn’t apparent in the first glance. Taking the hands out of the original space and printing with the muted colors makes them seem delicate and alluring though the content is otherwise. Once the viewer looks at the piece a little longer they can see that the hands are holding the silhouette of a woman’s body. This print takes what to some people is inappropriate and vile and makes it surreal and beautiful.

The clever theme of Interventions: Re-framing the Printed Image not only makes space for a viewer to search and find familiar elements which draws them around the room beautifully but educates the viewer about print and its timeless nature. These images and the others included in the exhibition display the abundant history of print and how the images are everlasting. The prints show where print has been and where print can and will be going.

Journey: A Review of Work by Donna Stallard

 Donna Stallard is a printmaker of three-dimensional prints. She is an Alumni and Professor at Indiana University Southeast. Her latest BX series is on display at the Arts Council of Southern Indiana’s main gallery.  She calls this show Journey because of its personal nature as it represents a physical and mental passage for her. Without talking to Donna, the pieces in this collection leave you wondering. They are so personal, that some explanation is needed to fully appreciate her journey.

Journey contains pieces created from boxes, cabinets, and various objects found in her father’s collection of “stuff”. These were items picked by her father. So, not only do they have a personal meaning, they also reflect her desire to repurpose and recycle used items. This is one way Donna’s environmental views are depicted in her art. She also makes it a point to use environmentally friendly materials. Her generation of artists/printmakers were trained using very toxic and harmful inks and chemicals. Her work reveals a change in time, from an earlier period in her life.

A few of the pieces in this collection are interactive and meant to be altered by the viewer.  Pieces of the sculptures, some of them print pieces, can be moved and repositioned to satisfy the viewer. This occurrence also reflects the idea of change that runs through Donna’s show. All of the pieces in this show are personal. One piece, bx #5 familial bb’s, includes birthdates, blood-types, and other personal information about her family. It fittingly sits on the mantle at the Arts Council.

 

BX # Keldo by Donna Stallard

Another piece called BX # Keldo is a metal case turned on its side and mounted to the wall.  The compartments in the case become shelves where the bones of Donna’s dog are displayed.  She didn’t want to leave her buried dog behind when she moved, so she dug up the bones. The bones also represent change. Overall, Donna’s work is very pleasing.  It is strange and colorful and full of life, despite her dead dog’s bones. 

Review: Interventions: Reframing the Printed Image

With the Mid America Print Counsel conference 2016 being hosted by Indiana University Southeast and University of Louisville, it’s understandable why the Louisville area has so many gallery exhibitions and events for printmakers and all that appreciate printmaking. Whether you are planning your route for a day of visiting galleries or just have time to stop by one or two, an exhibition that you should consider seeing for the MAPC conference would be “Interventions: Re-framing the Printed Image” at 21C Museum Hotel.
This show was curated by Susanna Crum, Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at IUS and it goes hand-in-hand with the recent MAPC conference. The theme of the exhibition is concerned with mass media, politics, pop culture, and how the printed image can be used in a different way to convey a message. A broad array of prints and mediums were represented which made this theme and exhibition successful in regards to variety. The works not only held with the theme well, but also related to each other in some way or another such as concept or subject.

One that stood out almost immediately was Ibrahim Miranda’s “Isla laboratorio o 7 maravillas (Island laboratory or 7 wonders)” (2012).  He uses his thirteen-color screen print and woodcut to combine symbols from all over the world into one place or map. As it says in his statement, “ Opposites confront one another-- the handmade and commercial, fact and fiction, self and other.”  His use of bright and muted colors and style give his work the look of a classic map, but when you get closer to examine the details you see that there are the great wonders of the world like the pyramids and the Great Wall of China all next to one another. Miranda used printmaking to combine these ideas and images seamlessly into one piece, making his own utopia of Cuba.

Another work that you should see is Peregrine Honig’s “Father Gander Portfolio” (2006).  Created with lithograph and Chine-collé, these prints show a twist on classic fairy tale characters that look like they had come straight out of a book. Honig’s use of light colors and pastels gives the characters a sense of innocence, but you soon realize that isn’t completely true as you read the title page and each characters’ snippet of a story.  “ Peregrine Honig explores relationships between sexual vulnerability, social anxieties, and consumer culture “ as it says in the statement.

As one of the many exhibitions surrounding the MAPC conference, this is one many would want to see in person. Not only is it free to go into the 21C museum, but it is also open 24 house 7 days a week! So, this exhibition can fit into most anyone’s schedule easily even if just for a quick visit. And if there is enough time, the rest of the museum and restaurant is also open for a whole afternoon event. This is definitely a recommended show for the MAPC conference. Being able to compare them as a whole and see the individual artists’ work together in one exhibition to redefine prints is an experience, so go experience print!