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!

Japanese ghosts

Just found this blog post about Meiji period monster prints. Great designs and some of the best impressions of this type of print I've seen. Here's my favorite from the post.

Good News about Annie

We had a great turn out last Thursday and Saturday for Annie Bissett's reception and talk.  Thanks to all of you who made it a special week!  I wanted to pass on the good news that Annie's print, Borders #1-U.S./Mexico, has just been accepted into the Boston Printmakers 2009 North American Print Biennial, which opens February 15, 2009 at Boston University!  Go, Annie!

Annie Bissett in Seattle

For those of you in Seattle this week, there are two chances to meet Massachusetts printmaker, Annie Bissett, whose exhibit is on the walls at Cullom Gallery through November 1st.

Gallery Walk Reception with Annie Bissett, 10/2, 6-8 pm.
Thursday is the night of Seattle's monthly Gallery Walk. Come down and see the show, Annie Bissett: moku hanga, far away, up close, and meet Annie!

Artist's Talk with Annie Bissett, 10/4, 2 pm
Then on Saturday, I'll be hosting a talk with Annie Bissett at Cullom Gallery at 2 pm. Annie will talk about her contemporary approach to the ages-old art of Japanese woodblock printmaking, and her thoughts about her commercial illustration work versus printmaking. Come with your own questions for Annie, bring a friend, and stay for a glass of wine; everyone is welcome!

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.

Only on the web...

I have to share these two cool online viewing tools I've been enjoying lately.  My web designer, Stephanie Krimmel, showed me the first, and the second I found while looking for more information about the Boston MFA's collection of Japanese postcards.  Both are beautiful examples of how the web can greatly enhance our enjoyment of art.  Yep, I said it.  The web can enhance our experience with art.  I know that borders on heresy in many circles, but I think you'll agree that these online exhibits go a long way toward elucidating two collections that would otherwise be difficult to get your mind and your eyes around, in a single sitting. And in the case of the first example, would be impossible to see in a visit to a single museum (check it out to learn more).  Does anyone else have favorite tools like these that they visit?  I'd love to add a sidebar list to Megane.

My first fave is the Seattle Art Museum's Deer Scroll exhibit.

(from the Deer Scroll)

The second is the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's exhibit of The Art of the Japanese Postcard. 

(one card from the Lauder Collection, MFA, Boston)

Solitude, by Naoko Matsubara

Japanese Canadian printmaker Naoko Matsubara (b. 1937) based the eleven black and white and color woodcuts of her portfolio, Solitude, on an chapter of the same name from Henry David Thoreau's, Walden (1854) which the famous naturalist and transcendentalist wrote during his years living alone on the shore of Walden Pond.  I am so excited to have the complete suite of these prints for sale and on exhibit in my gallery this summer.  Like Matsubara, who made a number of trips to Walden Pond as she designed her print series, I made a pilgrimage to Walden as a young teen with my family, during a summer-long cross country literary tour of the U.S.  As a child, I had readily absorbed my father's enthusiasm (he, a high school English teacher at the time) for the great New England writers and poets and in the ensuing years, I often recalled our excitement as we walked through dried leaves and around trees until we found the foundation stones of Thoreau's original cabin near the shore of Walden Pond.  Fast forward many years, and as I found my way into the field of Japanese prints, I was stuck to learn that someone else (imagine!) had also found a kindred spirit in the words and experiences of Thoreau, and remarkably, had translated her impressions into a set of Japanese prints!  It was as near to finding a message in a bottle as I had ever felt.  My initial excitement was quickly tempered though, when I found out how difficult is was going to be to find a complete folio of the prints.  Thirteen years later, I am thrilled to have this beautiful set -- these images that nearly spring off the page with joyous motion and power and infect us with Matsubara's thoughtful spirit, which has continued to pervade her work these many decades.  Sitting in my own gallery, writing to you about these prints some 20 years after the July day I spent on the edge of Walden Pond, I have to enjoy the moment and the sense that I am tying together two strands of my life. When the prints are sold, (and I encourage you to see the whole suite featured as the Special Exhibit during July and August at cullomgallery.com) I will have been happy to have them for a while and will hope that the next owner will find as much pleasure in them as I have.