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Art Review: Artists experiment with forms and figures in printmaking
Wednesday, December 08, 1999 By Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette Art Critic
In 1996, the Artists Image Resource group began holding printmaking workshops in its North Side studio to give invited artists the opportunity to explore a medium, or aspects of it, that they normally wouldn't. Because the participants vary widely in background, there is always a refreshing air of experimentation and the unexpected in the resultant work.
The "1999 Projects Exhibition" at the Foreland Street Gallery is the most playful and colorful to date and contains prints by six artists: Pittsburghers Maritza Mosquera and Lorraine Vullo, Connecticut artist Stewart Wilson and Ohio residents Don Harvey and, in collaboration, Craig Lucas and Michael Loderstedt (the only one with past workshop experience).
The tone is set by Wilson's "Persona Banners," some of which hang outside and dress up the front of the usually reserved building. Bold and accessible, they have the immediacy of a good poster. Pixel-patterned figures that were scanned from small, three-dimensional "personages" of Wilson's creation and appear to have received inspiration from Latin, Asian and Native American folk arts, are jubilant against bright backgrounds.
Also cheerful by virtue of its colorfulness, and imagery reminiscent of children's books, is Lucas and Loderstedt's "Bestiary." Separate sheets represent each letter of the alphabet through appropriately named and configured beasts and figures selected from an infinite resource of images that include drawings, photography and astronomical maps. That they're hung in eight rows that spell out the old typing exercise about the "quick brown fox" adds to the visual delight.
More intense is Mosquera's "Dilated Body," a dark work inspired by the breakup of a real -- or fictive -- relationship and presented as an installation. On the walls, three sensually rich, digitally manipulated, multicolored, abstract forms repeat in varying color combinations on black. Their large size -- 50 by 38 inches -- and titles -- "Flesh," "Entering," "Opening" -- underscore their organic quality. In actuality, they began as wads of clay. Completing the presentation are a table of etchings and stacks of altered (with metallic paint or blackened wax) e-mail and other correspondence that tempt the visitor to voyeuristically seek the narrative.
Harvey's finely presented, four-paneled "Time Bursts" appears to be about micro-to-macro components of our natural systems (cellular to lunar), but the artist's intent is evasive. So, too, Vullo takes a risk with her extremely delicate series of etchings, "Simon's Breath," inspired by photographs of her small son at rest. They are, in fact, abstracted portraits of an emotive state, but sometimes lose substance because of their subtlety.
Overall, these annual projects remain a hothouse for this at-times overlooked medium.
At 518 Foreland St. through Jan. 15. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday.
The appliquéd, embroidered, pieced and decorated wall hangings of Cuban artist Alejandrina Cue Gonzalez that fill the first floor have a naïf charm that is a mixture of joy and melancholy. While they at times resemble the fiber folk arts of Latin countries, like Peru, Cue says that such expression isn't found in the traditional arts of her country. Rather she -- who learned graphic design in Cuba and was one of only 11 artists from Latin America to study industrial design at the Bauhaus in Germany -- feels she's developing a new form of art that's more personally inspired.
The theme woven through the exhibition is "my heart," she says, which would explain the variety of emotions that come through in pieces that at one moment linger over "Things that No Longer Are" and at another celebrate the "Romantic Heart." These strongly composed, intensely worked "textile collages" are "reflections of her life," she explains through a translator. "Things she's been through, things she's suffered, all these stories are hers."
Part of the passion of this personal intensity is giving new life to fabric that, because of the scarcity of materials in Cuba, she receives as gifts from others. For example, in the whimsical, tri-paneled "Air, Water, Land," which incorporates sacks of Cuban seashells, soil and "air," is a panel of the dress worn by a 70-year old woman at her sweet-15 party. "Each piece of material has a special story" Cue says. "I tie it together with art."
Also featured are fanciful mobiles and jewelry by another Cuban artist, Osvaldo Castilla Romero, and fine trompe l'oeil paintings by American Pat Rosenstein. To provide variety for holiday shoppers, a second floor is given over to a selection of gallery regulars.
The other galleries in town also have gift-giving on their minds. Through Sunday, Sweetwater Center for the Arts, 200 Broad St., is brimming with arts and crafts from local and commercial sources, supplemented by scrumptious edibles, bowls of bulbs and a children's shop.
"The Christmas Show" at Bird in the Hand, 427 Broad St., through Dec. 24, is an annual marketplace of top-quality Mexican folk arts and crafts that have been gleaned from locations the gallery's owners have visited over the years.
Hours: International Images, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Tuesday through Friday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday. Bird in the Hand, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Sweetwater's Holiday Mart is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. today and tomorrow, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday through Sunday ($2 donation).
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Last Friday, Sewickley welcomed the holiday season festively with a "Yuletide in the Village" light-up night of luminaria, carolers and gallery open houses. The spirit will continue in an exhibition of the same name at International Images, 514 Beaver St., through February.