Ink pressed firmly into paper, and the impressions from linoleum blocks create an extra detail in the work of many printmakers throughout the history of art. Printmaking began during the Han Dynasty in China and slowly evolved to create printing presses that mass published books, newspapers, money and even art. The process is now something many art students learn and explore to create fantastically intricate works with its wide array of forms. Twenty-five student artists show off their unique printmaking styles during the “Im-Pressed” exhibit at the Adell McMillan Gallery in the Erb Memorial Union.
One of the many possibilities of the art form is the use of layering. In the work by Ben Gregg called “The Primordial Soup and Its Consequences,” he uses a collagraph to add detail below the top layer of the piece.
“To make a collagraph you make a collage with varying levels of depth with each piece of it. So I basically cut out a bunch of shapes and glued them together to make these little creatures and arranged them on the woodblock,” Gregg said. The dense cherry red layer is filled with secret creatures and bleeding lines, while above it distorted doodles of humans and animals show differentiating levels of weirdness.
When this block is pressed, it creates the impressions from the figures with a not-so-clear definition. This is seen with the bleeding red in the piece. He went even further and screen-printed on top of that to create cleaner black lines of distorted figures.
“Before college, I had never really thought about doing printmaking. During COVID, I did the intro to printmaking, which was terrible because I did it via Zoom. It’s just nice going back in the studio and learning these types of techniques,” junior Grace Cummings said.
In “January,” Cummings has an orange layer of carnelians leak out from a black layer adding to the detail of the flowers. Another piece exhibited, called “Fragmented,” is a collaboration between Cummings and her classmates using the intaglio technique — reusing past students’ work and creating something new with each piece and rearranging it for a whole new piece that expands on others’ work.
“It’s interesting because printmaking as a medium is kind of put on the backburner in the fine art world. I think it’s the most fun way to make art and there are many different ways you can do it,” Gregg said. “I’m glad we got the opportunity because there is a lot of stuff about printmaking that blows you away once you realize what goes into some of the stuff and the results you can get from those processes.”
Ellie Reis is another artist involved. Their eye-catching work “Duck Dayz” features a vivid array of colors that was executed using the CMYK technique. This was achieved by separating the colors into yellow, cyan and magenta. Layered dots of colors are pressed on top of one another, giving the piece an explosion of color that seems to pop off the paper.
“People say print is dead, but I would argue otherwise. I think printmaking is a lot more viable as a fine art medium now that we have these efficient processes,” Reis said. Using Photoshop and computer applications, artists can add even more meticulous detail to their work through printing than ever before. The combination of old and new techniques adds layers of importance to what these artists will do next with this medium.
The “Im-Pressed” exhibit will continue through May 20 in the Adell McMillan Gallery. The artists involved recommend if you want to pick up printmaking at home, start with a linoleum block and get to carving.
