Our 2012 Winter Contemporary Show opens tonight– with a celebratory opening night party from 5-8pm at OPG (its free- so stop by and bring all of your friends!). We selected work by 22 different artists- hailing from all over the map- DC, New York, Ohio, even Japan. Below is a sneak preview of the show’s collection. I’ve also included excerpts from the printmakers’ artists statements. Although many of these works speak for themselves, it is always interesting to read how an artist conceptualizes his/her own work- what inspires, what processes they use, and so on. Enjoy!
Bruce Waldman- “I think of my work as dealing much more with the turbulence of my emotions than about technique, process, or any intellectual method or idea. I use the techniques that I have learned as tools only. Whether I am doing a figure, a landscape or still-life, I am viewing from inside my body; and usually the image is speaking more about my feelings than about the objects I’m depicting.”
Linda Adato- “I start the image abstractly from the geometries of things around me, their configuration of line, form, shadow, etc. In the journey from drawing to final print, I do not so much execute the initial idea as I develop it in the course of the intaglio process. I am sometimes surprised by the “realistic” image.”
Takumune Ishiguro- “To draw a picture is to express myself. The motif of my work comes from ‘Nature’ – vitality created from nature, hue, shape, air, smell, etc. It is not the motif created systematically, but the motif created naturally that is put on my canvas, not directly but through the filter of ‘myself’. Etching has many attractive expressions such as lines or areas caused by corrosion and unplanned occurrences. A completed work is a mirror of myself.”
Masaaki Noda- “I like to express the inner and outer worlds of nature for pictorial dynamism. They radiate energy and originate either from the tellurian or the celestial world: perpetual motion which embraces abstraction through the potential and momentum of its intrinsic energy of nature.
Alan Petrulis- “Technique has never been more than a means to an end for me. I have no compulsion to follow rules, show off my expertise, or do something new for its own sake. Having worked in many mediums both new and old I feel most comfortable creating simple line etchings by a method that has changed little over the past four hundred years. “
Richard Sloat– “Woodcut and etching have been my field of creation. Both these forms of prints exude a visual clarity and depth of feeling. We, in viewing them, are tied into the visual world at an essential level, an affirmation of our own life’s journey.”
Robert Birmelin- “It is not unusual to find that a relative or friend’s memory of a past event clashes with one’s own. Indeed, how often do two witnesses to the same crime contradict one another as to what really occurred? As an artist, I found myself seeking a visual structure that would be an active metaphor for such a state of mind – a structure continuous and spatially rich that initially seems to offer an uncomplicated, expected orientation and then self subverts, challenging the observer to recognize the claims of another equally visually insistent counter-reading. Our minds are restless, making choices, fluctuating between possibilities as we strive to interpret, to judge between contending truths. These paintings live in mid-thought, in the space of that uncertainty – an all too familiar space in a world of bewildering choice.”
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