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INK & CLAY 41 INK ARTISTS
Bambusa Vulgaris, 2014
u.v. digital, stencil on Kozo paper
30" x 50"
Varsha Patel
Fall in the Mountain, 2015
linocut reduction
24" x 24"
Patel grew up in Mumbai, India. She was inclined towards drawing and the arts early in her childhood, but had to manage with limited art supplies. After high school she attended an arts college in Mumbai and graduated with BA degree in fine arts. There she learned oil and watercolor painting, charcoal and pencil drawing, batik design and life drawing. After graduating, she migrated to the US and worked in the financial industry for several years. In her spare time, she did some paintings and arts and crafts. After she stopped working in the financial industry, she took several classes in printmaking at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California. Here she focused on linocuts, woodcuts and intaglio, and developed a passion for printmaking. She concentrated on relatively large specialty reduction linocuts and successfully entered her creations in several leading art galleries and shows. Many of her creations were front covers and inside pages of Saddleback College publications, Wall Magazine and Flex booklets.
Her work is inspired by vibrant colors in nature, and some from her imagination. She often get ideas from photos and use her ideas and drawings to finish her work. Some of her woodcut and linocut prints are her imaginary flowers and gardens. Some of her etchings come from her Indian heritage.
The reduction method is a printmaking technique used to create a multicolored print with the use of a single block. For each color pass the artist removes more material from the block. Color will not transfer from the block to the paper where the material is removed so the image of the removed material will preserve the color used in the previous pass. Each color is printed on top of previous color. The artist must print the entire edition before going to the next color pass. The image slowly emerges while the actual block is destroyed. A reduction print can therefore never be reprinted. Patel’s reduction print editions are always either five or six prints.
Varsha Patel
Walk in the Woods, 2014
linocut reduction
18" x 24"
Patel grew up in Mumbai, India. She was inclined towards drawing and the arts early in her childhood, but had to manage with limited art supplies. After high school she attended an arts college in Mumbai and graduated with BA degree in fine arts. There she learned oil and watercolor painting, charcoal and pencil drawing, batik design and life drawing. After graduating, she migrated to the US and worked in the financial industry for several years. In her spare time, she did some paintings and arts and crafts. After she stopped working in the financial industry, she took several classes in printmaking at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California. Here she focused on linocuts, woodcuts and intaglio, and developed a passion for printmaking. She concentrated on relatively large specialty reduction linocuts and successfully entered her creations in several leading art galleries and shows. Many of her creations were front covers and inside pages of Saddleback College publications, Wall Magazine and Flex booklets.
Her work is inspired by vibrant colors in nature, and some from her imagination. She often get ideas from photos and use her ideas and drawings to finish her work. Some of her woodcut and linocut prints are her imaginary flowers and gardens. Some of her etchings come from her Indian heritage.
The reduction method is a printmaking technique used to create a multicolored print with the use of a single block. For each color pass the artist removes more material from the block. Color will not transfer from the block to the paper where the material is removed so the image of the removed material will preserve the color used in the previous pass. Each color is printed on top of previous color. The artist must print the entire edition before going to the next color pass. The image slowly emerges while the actual block is destroyed. A reduction print can therefore never be reprinted. Patel’s reduction print editions are always either five or six prints.
Kristen Powers Nowlin
Delicious and Refreshing: The Sign of Good Taste, 2014
from The Land of Romance Series
woodblock print on paper
42" x 66"
For many years, my work has explored how American culture defines and determines race. In the past, my artwork has represented the various ways that popular, scientfic or academic cultures have used to identify the race of a given individual. Skin color, hair type and color, facial features, and bloodline have all been explored and exploited as ways to include or exclude people from one category or another.
My current body of work, The Land of Romance Series, responds to images used in print advertisements of the 1930s, including Norfolk and Western Railroad travel brochures promoting Virginia as “the land of romance, hospitality, and beauty”; other travel brochures carrying the slogan, “Carry Me Back to Old Virginia”; and Maxwell House Coffee ads.
The original, idealized images that these advertisements featured are challenged and expanded in the black and white woodblock prints, perhaps showing a more accurate reality. Research into many African-American family trees can reveal multiple generations where children were born to slave women and fathered by slave owners. This history played a significant role in shaping America, both economically and socially, and has had a lasting impact on both individual families as well as America’s complex social fabric.
Jeff Reed
All Kinds of Truth, 2015
F.W. ink on wood panel
36" x 48"
As artists, we are always making observations: trying to create what we see into a new invention, using skills and imagination to make expressive marks in time. I am not making judgements about what I see, just observations, hoping I make something worth looking at. Observations of life in the suburbs of Southern California was the inspiration for All Kinds of Truth.
Karrie Ross
Watching the Pods, 2013
ink and watercolor
When I was four years-old playing in my front yard, we lived in one of those pre-war track homes–3 bedrooms and a 4’x4’ porch–in Southern California. It had newly planted green grass and a beautiful pink crepe myrtle tree in full-bloom. All of a sudden my mom runs out of the house yelling, “EARTHQUAKE!! Get in the house.” And at that very moment, a bee flew down my blouse. How much more surreal can it get?
This is my first recollection: a fascination with the juxtaposition of situation and parts. This has continued to expresses itself in my art. This work explores the disconnectedness of my thoughts—so I like pushing and pulling the tension using ink and paint…I create the cause of the risk within the “watching the paint dry —anticipation.
Karrie Ross, native to Los Angeles and a self-taught visual artist, shares her explorations into concepts of energy, science, participation, making-an-impact, creating internal and external conversations, and ‘being seen’, as the underlying influences of her art.
“There is FUN to be found in everything we do. So be sure to develop a pattern of creating conscious play, that will stay with you forever.”
Karrie Ross
Peeking at the Unknown, 2013
ink and watercolor
30" x 22"
When I was four years-old playing in my front yard, we lived in one of those pre-war track homes–3 bedrooms and a 4’x4’ porch–in Southern California. It had newly planted green grass and a beautiful pink crepe myrtle tree in full-bloom. All of a sudden my mom runs out of the house yelling, “EARTHQUAKE!! Get in the house.” And at that very moment, a bee flew down my blouse. How much more surreal can it get?
This is my first recollection: a fascination with the juxtaposition of situation and parts. This has continued to expresses itself in my art. This work explores the disconnectedness of my thoughts—so I like pushing and pulling the tension using ink and paint…I create the cause of the risk within the “watching the paint dry —anticipation.
Karrie Ross, native to Los Angeles and a self-taught visual artist, shares her explorations into concepts of energy, science, participation, making-an-impact, creating internal and external conversations, and ‘being seen’, as the underlying influences of her art.
“There is FUN to be found in everything we do. So be sure to develop a pattern of creating conscious play, that will stay with you forever.”
Howard Steenwyk
Dark Money, 2014
silk screen ink and paint on paper
25" x 58.75"
Courtesy of the artist
The contemporary ‘American Experience’ is a consumer driven environment in which our values are deceptively advertised as wholesome qualities of ‘The American Dream’. Concepts of packaging, branding and marketing have permeated our culture and language where interpersonal relationships have become commodities within social media to define status. My current work involves colliding images and techniques producing a new piece with content each individual component does not possess on its own. The conceptual and visual contrast expresses the divergent forces that shape the American Experience.
Dark Money is produced with silkscreen ink and aerosol paint on paper. The images are screen-printed with black silkscreen ink backwards on paper. The printed side of the sheet is painted with an aerosol can to various degree and position. The unprinted and unpainted side of the sheet reveals the paint bleeding through the paper where the screen printing didn’t block it out. Individual pieces are arranged and mounted to board.
Sophia Tise
Force of Nature, 2013
acrylic and India ink on panel
24" x 20"
Courtesy of the artist
Force of Nature is part of a series of exploration and awareness of the changes in the landscape.
Abstract curvilinear shapes carve-out a rocklike three-dimensionality in my pieces. Rich colors in acrylic paint and India ink conflict with the areas that are translucent, allowing marks and textures to come through.
Through studies and photographs of decaying leaves on the ground, in particular eucalyptus leaves, I feel a sense of something organic happening in my shapes: my work is reflecting the natural world, even at its most abstract.
These sensual, organic forms reflect the liquid beauty of life–a suggestion of invented landscape–creating a descriptive, visual narrative, filled with raw emotion.
Noriho Uriu
Rejuvenataion - Cell, 2014
from the Stem Cell in Art series
relief print and intaglio print, mixed media
18" x 18"
Courtesy of the artist
My art is an imprint of my observation, feeling and thoughts from daily life. In my work, I have been exploring the combinations of various printmaking methods, such as intaglio, relief and monotype.
In addition, I have been studying the current phenomenon of stem cell research. It has been very fascinating for me to learn the process of the culture, evolution, and regeneration of the stem cell. My current series of prints are inspired by this. In Rejuvenation-Cell, I created an image by putting two elements together: various stem cell images, like a microcosm; and the silhouette of a female profile.
Peter Van Ael
Swarm, 2013
reduction woodcut
20" x 16"
Courtesy of the artist
My creative research is informed by my interest in pattern, camouflage, mimicry, layering, and relative scale. I find inspiration both in the natural and human-made world, creating abstract and non-representational works of art that gradually reveal and obscure information in richly textured layers.
Since 2000, I have focused my studio practice on the reduction woodcut. I find its sculptural physicality, in combination with its working immediacy, very appealing. I am exceedingly seduced by its inherent quality requiring the gradual destruction of the matrix during the creation of the work of art. The reduction woodcut print is born out of a creative one-way voyage that provides constant challenges and requires total commitment to any decision made. The reduction woodcut does not tolerate any detours or returns. Consequently, the reduction woodcut is always a unique, fresh, direct, powerful, and honest expression of the artist’s creative intent.
Margi Weir
Topless, 2015
from the Frontline/Detroit series
Sumi ink, India ink, tushe on rag paper
13" x 19"
Courtesy of the artist
I began making drawings of ink and ink wash about 10 years ago using a technique that I call a ‘snap line’. A ‘snap line’ is the mark made by dipping cotton twine into liquid ink or diluted ink, pulling it tight and snapping it against the paper in an action similar to plucking a guitar string. It is a record of the violent impact of ink with paper. It suggests an event, an explosion, a reverberation, yet the over spray lends a softness to the line quality. I like the idea that something beautiful on the surface has an underlying violence, a dark side, if you will.
I moved to Detroit in 2009 to join the faculty of Wayne State University. I found, not only Detroit, but the Mid-West in general, to be full of unfamiliar sights and sounds. I was also confronted by the architectural decay that was, initially, frightening. I began to draw these skeletons of buildings to familiarize myself with my new environment. Through drawing, I learn to understand new information. I internalize it and know it in a way that transforms it into something familiar and less frightening. These drawings are fairly large but they are intimate studies of my neighborhood as I become familiar with it. You could say that I am drawing close to Detroit. I have titled the series Frontline: Detroit because I still begin my drawings with ‘snap lines’. I use them to find the main compositional and architectural lines to anchor the drawing.
As I paid closer attention to the urban ruins, I found that they are not only in Detroit. I began to notice them all across the country. There are architectural bones of regional cultures that dot the countryside all along Route 66. There are ruins of motels, gas stations, and actually, whole towns. There are ‘bones’ left from natural as well as financial disaster. So I have expanded the Frontline: Detroit Series to include Route 66 and other cities in America.
Margi Weir
Before the Fall, 2014
from the Frontline/Detroit series
Sumi ink, India ink, tushe on rag paper
16" x 19"
Courtesy of the artist
I began making drawings of ink and ink wash about 10 years ago using a technique that I call a ‘snap line’. A ‘snap line’ is the mark made by dipping cotton twine into liquid ink or diluted ink, pulling it tight and snapping it against the paper in an action similar to plucking a guitar string. It is a record of the violent impact of ink with paper. It suggests an event, an explosion, a reverberation, yet the over spray lends a softness to the line quality. I like the idea that something beautiful on the surface has an underlying violence, a dark side, if you will.
I moved to Detroit in 2009 to join the faculty of Wayne State University. I found, not only Detroit, but the Mid-West in general, to be full of unfamiliar sights and sounds. I was also confronted by the architectural decay that was, initially, frightening. I began to draw these skeletons of buildings to familiarize myself with my new environment. Through drawing, I learn to understand new information. I internalize it and know it in a way that transforms it into something familiar and less frightening. These drawings are fairly large but they are intimate studies of my neighborhood as I become familiar with it. You could say that I am drawing close to Detroit. I have titled the series Frontline: Detroit because I still begin my drawings with ‘snap lines’. I use them to find the main compositional and architectural lines to anchor the drawing.
As I paid closer attention to the urban ruins, I found that they are not only in Detroit. I began to notice them all across the country. There are architectural bones of regional cultures that dot the countryside all along Route 66. There are ruins of motels, gas stations, and actually, whole towns. There are ‘bones’ left from natural as well as financial disaster. So I have expanded the Frontline: Detroit Series to include Route 66 and other cities in America.2
Margi Weir
Folded, 2015
from the Frontline/Detroit series
Sumi ink, India ink, tushe on rag paper
24" x 30"
Courtesy of the artist
I began making drawings of ink and ink wash about 10 years ago using a technique that I call a ‘snap line’. A ‘snap line’ is the mark made by dipping cotton twine into liquid ink or diluted ink, pulling it tight and snapping it against the paper in an action similar to plucking a guitar string. It is a record of the violent impact of ink with paper. It suggests an event, an explosion, a reverberation, yet the over spray lends a softness to the line quality. I like the idea that something beautiful on the surface has an underlying violence, a dark side, if you will.
I moved to Detroit in 2009 to join the faculty of Wayne State University. I found, not only Detroit, but the Mid-West in general, to be full of unfamiliar sights and sounds. I was also confronted by the architectural decay that was, initially, frightening. I began to draw these skeletons of buildings to familiarize myself with my new environment. Through drawing, I learn to understand new information. I internalize it and know it in a way that transforms it into something familiar and less frightening. These drawings are fairly large but they are intimate studies of my neighborhood as I become familiar with it. You could say that I am drawing close to Detroit. I have titled the series Frontline: Detroit because I still begin my drawings with ‘snap lines’. I use them to find the main compositional and architectural lines to anchor the drawing.
As I paid closer attention to the urban ruins, I found that they are not only in Detroit. I began to notice them all across the country. There are architectural bones of regional cultures that dot the countryside all along Route 66. There are ruins of motels, gas stations, and actually, whole towns. There are ‘bones’ left from natural as well as financial disaster. So I have expanded the Frontline: Detroit Series to include Route 66 and other cities in America.3
Gail Werner
Bird Dreams XIX, 2014
monotype
14" x 11"
Courtesy of the artist
My work reflects the landscape and cultural imagery related to my Native American background. I am a member of the Cupeño band of southern California Indians. Our traditional songs, called ‘bird songs’, and creation stories have played an important role in how I see the natural world. These stories and songs, in which plants and animals are the characters, tell about how the world came to be, and how the people came to be where they are. The ‘bird songs’ tell about the journey of the people, which is said to parallel the migration of the birds. The songs tell about what the birds see: the mountains, deserts, night sky, and other landmarks. Through the use of color, light, Native American rock art designs, and plant and bird imagery, my work evokes a sense of place and journey.
Gail Werner
Herr Strohman, 2013
linocut, ed. 5/20 variable eds.
16” x 14”
Courtesy of the artist
My artwork is often narrative in nature, with attention paid to a variety of global issues…the environment, poverty, war, etc. I will often employ the use of archetypal figures to reference these issues.
In Herr Strohmann, the figure refers to the strawman that has appeared in a variety of incarnations: in the folklore of numerous cultures, including Estonia in the 17th century, Croatia, Germany and Ireland, among others. This figure was often used to represent luck, both good and bad, harvests, winter and even death. In this relief print, I have placed the strawman image on a reproduction of an old map, with a blazing sun behind the figure to suggest the inevitable dominance of nature.
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copyright Kellogg Art Gallery 2015