Contemporary Prints an exhibition at the
Building on Tradition PR I NTM A K I NG Printmaking has a strong presence in Austin ranging from the encyclopedic collection of 13,500 prints in the permanent collection of the Blanton Museum of Art on the University of Texas campus to the contemporary, often experimental work published by three noted printmaking studios—Flatbed Press, Coronado Studio/Serie Project, and Slugfest Workshop. Together, they demonstrate three basic aspects of current printmaking: the uniqueness of the medium, the combination of new technologies with old, and the crucial role of collaboration. Robert Faires, Arts Editor for the Austin Chronicle, points out the strength of the city’s offerings. “The Blanton collection shows us how the tradition of printmaking was established in Europe and carried through the Industrial Age to the advent of modernism; it gives us the past,” he says. The contemporary workshop at Flatbed “shows us how that tradition has been built upon in our time and city; it gives us the present, but it doesn’t end there.” Austin’s printmaking workshops represent innovation—“an engine that is still driving forward, a lab that is still working toward the next advance”—and point to the future.
The current exhibition is a collaboration between The Four Seasons Austin, Flatbed Press and Gallery Shoal Creek.
FLATBED PRESS is an Austin-based publishing workshop and one of only a few such workshops in the U. S. specializing in original limited editions prints—lithographs, etchings, photogravures, woodcuts and monotypes—by contemporary American and international artists. Artists collaborate with Flatbed’s master printers to create plates and blocks from which the original impressions are hand-printed. Located in the East Austin Boggy Creek area, the workshop and handsome warehouse galleries are the hub of Austin’s well-established printmaking community.
DAN RIZZIE has worked with Flatbed Press for twenty years, experimenting with a wide variety of printmaking techniques and scales. Scrolling arabesques, blackbirds and flowers populate Rizzie’s visual vocabulary and accentuate his penchant for strong, graphic forms. Blackberry Thieves I, II, III was published at Flatbed in 2008. The woodcut suite, a collaboration between Rizzie and master printer Pat Masterson, layers six color blocks on Japanese Okawara paper. In 2010, Galveston Arts Center presented Dan Rizzie: The Flatbed Years, Selected Prints 1993–2009 which showcased work produced at the Austin workshop. Rizzie received an MFA from Southern Methodist University in Dallas; his work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York City, The Dallas Museum of Art, San Antonio Museum of Art, the New York City Public Library, and numerous corporate and private collections.
DAN RIZZIE Blackberry Thieves II (yellow), 2008, ed. of 18 Woodcut with chine colle Paper Size: 45 1/2” x 38”
KENNETH HALE is the Marguerite Fairchild Centennial Professor of Art at the University of Texas, College of Fine Arts. An internationally noted printmaker himself, Professor Hale has been instrumental in developing the graduate printmaking program ranked this year in the country’s top ten by US News. In 1979, he founded and served as the Director for the Guest Artist in Printmaking Program. Professor Hale served as Chair of the Department of Art and Art History from 1996 to 2005 and served as the Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for the College of Fine Arts 2006-2012. Professor Hale received his M.F.A. from the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana. He has been the recipient of several University research and travel awards, and in 1990 he received a Mid-America Arts Alliance National Endowment Fellowship. His prints are represented in collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, The National Museum of American Art, Washington DC, the Achenbach Foundation, San Francisco, the Atlantic Richfield Collection, the American Airlines Collection, the McNay Art Museum, the Chicago Art Institute, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth.
I am interested in making unique, contemplative contemporary landscapes that respectfully reference the masters of the past and pay homage to modern art.
KEN HALE / HYBRID SERIES, 2009 Archival Ink Jet, hand painted AquaCryl Gloss, Acrylic Previous page / Hybrid #1 (Poussin) ed. of 3 / 57 3⁄4” X 44” Above L / Hybrid #2 (Constable) ed. of 3 / 57 3⁄4” X 44” Above R / Hybrid #3 (Gainesborough) ed. of 3 / 57 3⁄4” X 44” Opposite page / Hybrid #4 (Canaletto) ed. of 3 / 57 3⁄4” X 44”
SUZI DAVIDOFF / SKY SUITE, 2005 Chine collé multi-plate soft-ground and aquatint with hand applied pigment Above / Escobilla, Outer Planet Missions, ed. of 20 / 30” x 22” Opposite L / Sumpweed, Earth’s Mageneto Sphere, ed. of 20 / 30” x 22” Opposite R / Bird of Paradise, Astrologer’s Comet Drawings, ed. of 20 / 30” x 22”
SUZI DAVIDOFF, a native of El Paso, received both a MA and MFA from New Mexico State University. At Austin’s Flatbed Press she works with master printers to create etchings that explore themes of structure and perception in the natural world. On hikes through the Chihuahuan desert of west Texas, Davidoff collects plants, mosses, and natural pigments. Later, she rubs these into the surface of her drawings and prints, thus, creating a physical connection between personal experience and finished work. The Sky Suite is one such series. Here, “plant forms from the Davis Mountains and central Texas are layered,” she says, “with images of comets derived from drawings by an early astrologer and contemporary diagrams of the earth’s magnetosphere.” The etchings are printed from hand-drawn copper plates with hand-applied cochineal, a natural pigment used in Mexico for hundreds of years. By combining her velvety-black botanical silhouettes with the subtle sky drawings and the colorful earth pigments, Davidoff achieves an intriguing macro/micro effect of image and meaning. Davidoff received the Pollock-Siquieros Binational Art Award from the Ford Foundation, and a MidAmerica Arts Alliance-National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. Her collaborative book project, Beauty.Chaos, was part of the 20th Anniversary Exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
JOAN WINTER, an interior architect as well as sculptor and printmaker, is drawn to the Japanese use of interior structures and is inspired by architectural details. The subtle texture and horizontal pattern of Sudare Yellow references the visual structure of Japanese screens or blinds. Winter, who lives in Dallas, worked with master printer Katherine Brimberry at Flatbed Press to print this large format piece in several color versions. The Sudare image was created with two plates. First, a smooth plate was relief rolled and applied to the paper to provide the background. Soft ground etching was used to transfer the texture from thinly sliced wood onto another plate. The impression was then etched deep into the plate with acid, the plate inked, and the wood grain areas printed. Winter received an MFA from the Meadows School for the Arts at SMU. Her work has been selected for exhibitions by curators from Museum of Modern Art, NY; International Print Center, NY; High Museum of Art, GA. Her work was presented in the Austin Museum of Art exhibit “Advancing Tradition: 20 Years of Printmaking at Flatbed Press�.
JOAN WINTER Sudare Yellow Original Print Multi-plate Etching 54 1/8 x 33 inches
TONY SALADINO / MONOTYPES, 2012 L / Cadenza V / 49” x 37” framed R / Allegretto III / 49” x 37” framed
TONY SALADINO has recently created a series of monotypes that are influenced by music. Monotypes are prized because of their unique textural qualities. They are made by painting on a flat surface and then pressing down paper on it while the plate is still wet. The pigment remaining on the plate is insufficient to make another identical print. Since each is unique and hand executed, monotypes cannot be considered a technique of multiple replication. Saladino’s work is in the collections of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Hanoi, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, University of Dallas, Wichita Falls Museum, Museum of International Art, Bahia, Brazil, McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana, Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri,and Parkersburg Art Center-Parkersburg, West Virginia. He has taught at The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and Oxbow Summer School of Art, Michigan.
Shape sets the structure of my work. Color, though, gives me the opportunity to express my thoughts and feelings in a way that is universally understood. Color and the interplay of all of the paď€ rameters of color set the tone for each new piece.
CONTEMPORARY PRINTS, an exhibition of monotypes and editioned prints, was curated by Judith Taylor, owner and director of Gallery Shoal Creek in Austin. Ms Taylor works closely with the Four Seasons Hotel Austin to showcase original works of art by Texas artists. Located in Central Austin near the University of Texas, GALLERY SHOAL CREEK’s legacy spans over four decades. Established in 1965, the gallery continues the tradition of representing talented artists, presenting engaging exhibitions, and building fine art collections. Works on paper have a significant presence at the gallery. In addition to Tony Saladino and Ken Hale, whose works are represented in the current presentation, the gallery features other artists known for printmaking and works on paper, from Karen Kunc, one of the premier woodcut artists in the U.S. to Catherine Dudley, an emerging artist who incorporates screenprinting, etching and chine colle in her layered works.
GALLERY
SHOAL CREEK WWW.GALLERYSHOALCREEK.COM