Seattle Print Arts, Vol. 4, #1
Fall, 2003
Seattle Art Museum Rental Sales Gallery
North-South, Recent Printmaking in Seattle and Oaxaca (Excerpted)
In October of 2002 and February of 2003, printmakers from Seattle, Washington and Oaxaca, Mexico held two exhibitions, first in Seattle and then in Oaxaca. Their collaboration developed over a three-year period, forging strong ties between artists and curators in both cities…
The Seattle prints are remarkably different as a group. The heritage of the Northwest School, with its abstract forms and Iyrical spirituality, is evident in poetic images reminiscent of the work of Mark Tobey and Morris Graves. Mark Callen's The Mooring, and Pat Decaro's Hidden-Wonder, both etchings, share a muted, mostly black and white palette and evocative forms. Mixed media images, Water Study by Claudia Fitch, Black Daisy by Gail Grinnell,Untitled Blue, by Barbara Robertson, Seeds with Peach, by Eva Isaksen, and Shoreline, by Shirley Scheier, are explorations in harmonic, rhythmic form, as are Rachel Illingworth's collagraph Home/Hive, Kamia Kakaria's monoprint Osmotic #2 and Deborah Mersky's clay print Snakes and Ladders. Scott Frish's lithograph Nocturnal has a distinctly Northwestern feel, with its brown, beige and black rendering of a crow perched against a mysterious, map-like background. Human traces appear in five of the Seattle prints, some with implied social messages. Dionne Haroutunian's mixed media monoprint Lune Tombante refers to her Armenian heritage and the burden of genocide she carries. Sally Schuh's Untitled (blue scratch/double speak), a photoetching and aquatint, implies the dilemmas of human communication in image and words. The inclusion of an enigmatic uniformed man in Gene Gentry MacMahon's Empire Wanes, hints at political satire and the current world situation. Layne Kleinart's Delusion 2, oil monotype and acrylic, communicates an impression of humorous human folly, while Elizabeth Sandvig's Tum, etching and aquatint, and Akio Takamori's Swimmers, etching and chine colle, are playful images that demonstrate the highly advanced technique common to all the prints in both exhibitions…
— Deborah Caplow