Eva Pietzcker at Cullom Gallery this Weekend

Moving Trees.  Moku hanga (Japanese-style woodblock print). 9-1/2 x 9-7/8 inches.  Edition 20

We are getting the finishing touches on what is proving to be a beautiful exhibit, Revealing the Root: Moku Hanga by Eva Pietzcker, which opens at Cullom Gallery this Saturday, August 21st.  Stop by for the opening reception from 6 to 9 pm and meet Eva who is making her first trip to Seattle for the occasion!  The sixteen ethereal woodblock prints on view are all hand-printed with water-based inks in the traditional Japanese moku hanga manner.  These prints, even more so that those in last year's show here, truly reduce the landscape to its very essence.  In her statement Eva has said that she seeks to "reconnect to the root and reveal a vital energy" (as embodied in) "foundational elements...like stone, waves or mountains."  That's what I see in these prints too, thus my title, Revealing the Root....

Winter Lake.  Moku hanga (Japanese-style woodblock print) 26-3/8 x 18-1/2 inches.  Edition 20.

Eva bases her prints on plein air impressions rendered in sumi-e sketches and gathered during travels, most recently in and around the Baltic Sea, the Rhine River, Crete, Ontario, and her homebase of Berlin.  Lately Eva has also shared with me her new-found affinity to the lighter-than-air landscape paintings of 14th century Chinese painters of the Yuan Dynasty.  Kind of a twins-separated-at-birth feeling for her it sounds like.

But wait!  There's more.  Eva is sticking around after the Saturday opening and on Sunday August 22nd, she will give a talk and moku hanga demonstration at Cullom Gallery at 1 pm .  In the last few years Eva has been called on frequently as an instructor and Visiting Artist.  In 2009 and earlier this year, she was a Visiting Artist at Montana State University, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Institute for East Asian Art at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Please pass this on to all your printmaking friends.  I expect Eva will treat us to a clear and insightful demonstration.

Revealing the Root: Moku Hanga by Eva Pietzcker

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 21, 6 to 9pm

Artist's Talk and Moku Hanga printmaking demonstration, Sunday August 22, 1 pm

See the show online beginning August 21 at www.cullomgallery.com

Cullom Gallery

603 S Main Street

Seattle, WA  98104

206.919.8278

info@cullomgallery.com

Map

Moku Hanga News

This just in courtesy of Annie Bissett.  The 1st International Moku Hanga Conference will take place in Kyoto & Awaji, Japan next summer, June 7 - 12, 2011!  Not many details on their website yet, but check back often.  I know I will be making plans to attend.  Thanks to everyone who will work hard to make this happen.

American Bible Story, More Praise

 

In addition to the Robert Blackburn Exhibition mentioned in the previous post, I am pleased to announce that Annie Bissett's recently completed, American Bible Story, has also been selected for inclusion in the International Print Center New York (IPCNY) New Prints|2009 exhibition, which will coincide with the IFPDA Print Fair in New York next month.  The 150 to 200 prints chosen for the IPCNY exhibit are selected from a group of over 2000 entries, so another big congratulations to Annie Bissett.

New Prints|2009 at the International Print Center New York (IPCNY) opens October 29 and remains on view through December 12, 2009.

International Print Center New York (IPCNY)

New Prints 2009/Autumn

11 am - 6 pm

526 W. 26th St,.Rm 824

New York, NY

(212) 989-5090

Website ipcny.org

American Bible Story and several of Annie Bissett's recent prints from her Pilgrim series are available at Cullom Gallery and through the Gallery's website.

AMERICAN BIBLE STORY

Japanese woodblock (moku hanga)
Paper size: 14.75" x 16" (37.5 x 40.6 cm)
Image size: 11.625" x 13.75" (29.5 x 34.9 cm)
5 shina plywood blocks
14 hand-rubbed impressions
Paper: Nishinouchi
Edition: 21 

 
An excerpt from Annie Bissett's blog, Woodblock Dreams.
I've been thinking for a long time about the way that present-day Americans of every political persuasion call upon "the founding fathers" to justify all sorts of theories about what America is and how Americans should behave. This quoting of early colonists has always reminded me of the practice of quoting the Bible to add legitimacy and authority to one's own ideas and feelings. Then, reading Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's narrative poem about John and Priscilla Alden, The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), I noticed that Longfellow alluded to Bible love stories -- Ruth and Boaz, Rebecca and Isaac -- so I started to work with the idea that the early European settlers of America have become a kind of American Bible story.

The stories I included are pretty obvious -- Noah's ark, Adam and Eve, the pillar of clouds, the city on a hill. I also threw in a nod to Utamaro and his shunga prints. I had very much wanted the serpent to be saying "join or die" as it says in the original woodcut by Benjamin Franklin, but in my research I discovered that there's an artist named Justine Lai who is making extensive use of that phrase in her work. Lai is making a series of paintings that depict her having sex with each of the 44 presidents of the United States. I decided to omit the "join or die" text in my piece so as not to jump on that bandwagon.

First Thursday & Eva Pietzcker

Eva Pietzcker's show of 18 color and black-and-white Japanese woodblock prints continues through March 30th at Cullom Gallery, and we're kicking off it's second month with a reception tonight at the Gallery, from 6 - 8 pm during the Pioneer Square Gallery Walk.

In addition to Pietzcker's great prints, there's a lot to see this month in Pioneer Square. Downstairs at Davidson Galleries is an encyclopedic collection of posters and many woodcuts by America icon, Antonio Frasconi. Greg Kucera Gallery continues with quilts and etchings by the quilters of Gee's Bend. And G. Gibson Gallery opens a group show focused on birds and habitat including the Narnia-like photographs of Nealy Blau.

Grab an umbrella and come on down. (and after, go sip and nibble something at my new favorite aprés-Walk spot, Elisian Fields - just down the street at 1st and King.)




Untitled (Glade big), 2005 38 x 21 inches

Introducing Eva Pietzcker

I'm so pleased with my new winter exhibit at Cullom Gallery of Japanese woodblock prints by Berlin artist, Eva Pietzcker. This show of 17 color and black and white landscape prints (and one delightfully domestic still life of apples and geraniums) will open tomorrow night, February 5th, with a preview from 6 - 8 pm. If you are in Seattle, please come down and see Eva's prints in person!

With the new year, I'll be adding several additional contemporary artists to the mix at Cullom Gallery. As I've mentioned here before, I am keen to show my audience, though my exhibits and general offerings, artistic links from the present back to the olden days of Japanese prints and from the old back to the present and everything in between.

In Eva's prints, I see an exciting buzz between traditions of composition found in ukiyo-e landscape prints (and as a client suggested last week, maybe Huan Dynasty landscape painting?) and Eva's own modern and minimal, sometimes stylized, approach to landscape.

This group of prints covers the years 2003 to the present and includes prints produced during the artist's residencies in Japan and Canada, along with scenes of her own Berlin. (Pietzcker also spent some time in China on an independent study of traditional Chinese paper making techniques and in Indonesia for an artist's residency - both trips inspiring additional print designs.)

In a statement for Toronto's Open Studio's webiste, Eva wrote, "I try to omit 'unimportant' parts and to reveal the essences while reducing information- without killing off the vibrancy of the work. I try to achieve that by oscillating between simplicity and complexity, black-and-white and colour, abstraction and narration."

In 2001, she established the printmaking studio "drucktelle" with partner Miriam Zegrer (the studio has just recently closed) for the purpose of research into and teaching courses on printmaking techniques, with the aim of using non-toxic material as much as possible. Pietzcker continues teaching printmaking courses independently and at several art academies in Germany. Her prints have been shown in solo and group exhibits throughout Germany, the United States, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Poland, Canada, Japan, and Indonesia. Most recently in 2008 she was part of the California Society of Printmaker's exhibit in Pacific Grove, CA, (she's been a member since 2006); and exhibited as a member of the artist group ' Nagasawa Ten' in the exhibit, "A Time and a Place" which traveled to both Amsterdam's Grafisch Atelier, and Deco Gallery, Tallinn, Estonia. In 2007, Pietzcker served as visiting artist at Open Studio, Toronto, Canada, and at The Print Studio, Hamilton Canada. In 2003 and 2004 Pietzcker was Artist-in-Residence at Nagasawa Art Park, Japan and Tsuna-Cho, Japan, respectively.

The show will be featured in a special online exhibit (by tomorrow afternoon) one the gallery's website at www.cullomgallery.com. The exhibit will continue on the gallery walls through March 30, but hopefully, Eva's prints will become a perennial offering at this gallery!

Quiet blog, busy gallery

I'm happy to say that after a packed month of preparation during August, Cullom Gallery opened on September 4th, the fist solo of exhibit of contemporary moku hanga (Japanese style woodblock prints) by Northampton, Massachusetts artist, Annie Bissett.
I met Annie last year while searching the web for contemporary Japanese woodblock printmakers. I probably looked at the work of over 200 artists; Annie's and names of a few others made it onto one small piece of paper. What I particularly like about Annie's prints is how beautifully made they are and, in their craftsmanship, how tied they are to the tradition of Japanese printmaking, yet how different the content is! As I move further into contemporary prints, I'm not interested in prints and printmakers who are just regurgitating the hackneyed styles and subjects of 19th and 20th century Japanese prints. Japanese printmaking has a long history that includes periods of both inspired growth and predictable commercialism. Whether it's Hokusai's genius at capturing humanity and humor in his ukiyo-e, or the exciting nascent years of the sosaku hanga movement before the War, or today, printmakers like Annie Bissett, who aren't just making one more print of giant koi or thatched-roof farmhouses. These are the prints and the artists I'm after, those learning from the old tradition, but who expand upon it. In the end, these are the artist's that keep Japanese printmaking alive.

The Annie Bissett exhibit, which runs through November 1st, includes prints from 2006 to the present. It's remarkable to consider that Annie has only been making prints for three years, after taking a printmaking class with New Hampshire printmaker, Matt Brown in 2005. Prior to printmaking, Annie had spent several decades as a successful commercial illustrator with clients like the National Geographic Society, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. She continues her illustration career while working printmaking time around illustration work. Her own practice of meditation also played into the content of some of her early work, while more recent prints are driven by Annie's interest in mapping, locations, and the human impact, for better or for worse, upon a place. Earlier this year she completed a triptych called Three Prophets: tall narrow prints that start with satellite views of Bethlehem, Mecca, and Lumbini - the birth places of Jesus, Mohammed, and the Buddha. Over the maps Annie places symbols and texts that add the human layer to the place. Annie uses the same approach in another print that tells the historic tale of the U.S./Mexico border - the first of what will be a multi-print series of famous, or infamous, borders of the world.
Response has to Annie's prints been great thus far. Prints from all editions are still available, though just a few are left in some cases. I'm also excited that Annie will be in Seattle for the exhibit's October 2nd reception from 6-8 pm at Cullom Gallery. She will then stick around Seattle and be back in the Gallery Saturday afternoon,
October 4th for an artist's talk at the Gallery at 2 pm. Please give the Gallery a call at 206.919.8278 if you can make it, or just stop by too.