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January 15, 2008
RANGE AND DIVERSITY OF PRINTED MATTER EXPLORED IN EXHIBIT AT BEN SHAHN GALLERIES EXHIBIT
The impact of new technology on the medium of printmaking, and the many printed formats artists have devised to express their ideas are the focus of a continuing exhibit at the Ben Shahn Galleries at William Paterson University in Wayne from February 4 through March 7 and March 24 through April 22, 2008. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. A reception for the exhibit will be held on Sunday, February 3 from 3 to 5 p.m.
“Prints and Company” features works by five artists: Liz Demaree of South Orange, Roberta Allen of New York City, Liz Mitchell of Pittstown, Catherine Le Cleire of Upper Montclair, and Carol Westfall of Jersey City. “The range and diversity of printed matter have expanded in recent years, due in part to the development of new technology and safer printing techniques and materials,” says Nancy Einreinhofer, director of the Ben Shahn Galleries and curator of the exhibit. “The computer and the myriad of associated technical attachments, devices, scanners, and programs, is of course an important element, but the creative draw of the medium in general and the experimentation it allows appears to be a force as well. Dreams, politics, ancient texts continue to serve as the sources of inspiration, but innovative materials and techniques seem to have further liberated the imagination.”
Liz Demaree, in her series “Our Lady of the Meadowlands,” has lifted figures from medieval manuscripts and inserted them into digital photographs of Jersey City taken by the artist. The incongruity of image to landscape within these digital prints is sometimes disconcerting and almost always humorous, but the work conveys a thoughtful story. The series assumes three different formats: the individual prints on hand made paper, the boxes – small encaustic coated gems reminiscent of religious icons – and the book, complete with a text written in the voice of a Jersey City teenage girl.
Cyberspace is the terrain of choice for Roberta Allen. The abstract geometric patterns she has created on the computer through a layering process are obviously informed by her history as a conceptual artist. “As forms are added, the underlying ones disappear; on the print, the only remnant of this process lies in the numerical sum handwritten in the lower left hand corner,” Allen explains. Her images intrigue the viewer with their ability to exploit both the concept of their creation and the concrete visual result.
Liz Mitchell draws on dreams, then experiments and follows her instinct to create highly personal books that tell tales, both through a narrative element and through the materials. She alters the standard artist’s materials by cutting and tearing, painting and waxing, until they are physically transformed into the idea she is seeking to represent. Her books are multiples, yet made individual in certain ways, often through the use of found materials. The materials and the content together celebrate the mystery of objects and memory.
Memory plays an important role in the work of Catherine Le Cleire, whose silkscreen prints are a colorful manipulation of childlike imagery. The brilliant colors are achieved through the use of acrylic paint, as opposed to ink, in the printing process, further altered with crayon d’arche. The compositions of iconic structures such as “house” or “dog” or “bone” are enhanced by the vivid colors and the rational orderliness she employs in her compositions.
In 2002, Carol Westfall exhibited at the Ben Shahn Galleries her large-scale digital images of lower Manhattan photographed prior to September 2001. Paired with the photographs in that installation were 3,000 origami doves. Now, on soft images of water, Westfall has superimposed lines from the poems of Hafiz, the great Sufi master poet: “The sky is a suspended ocean, the stars are fish that swim.” By combining visual and cultural materials, she poses questions for the viewer—the oneness of the world and its origins, the sameness of diverse cultures in their humanity, or the more pragmatic issue of climate change.
The exhibit is one of three shows currently on view in the Ben Shahn Galleries. On view in the South Gallery is “American Impressions,” a national juried print exhibit curated by Ofelia Garcia, professor of art at William Paterson University. “Bradford Graves – This Mirror Can Crack a Stone,” on view in the Court Gallery, features the artist’s sculptures and drawings from 1980 to 1998.
The exhibit is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Ben Shahn Galleries are wheelchair-accessible. Large-print handouts are available. For additional information, please call the Ben Shahn Galleries at William Paterson University at 973-720-2654.
Note to reporters and editors: Downloadable photographs are available at http://ww2.wpunj.edu/publicityphotos/BenShahnGalleries/PrintsandCo_exhibit
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