CURATORS’ STATEMENT

The theme, Brave New World, embodies the search for new means of artistic expression in the twenty-first century. The artists chosen to be participants in Brave New World, A Print Odyssey, are known for their adventurous spirit.  They combine traditional techniques of etching, lithography, and silkscreen with innovative media in this seminal portfolio.



























































































































The artists in Brave New World, A Print Odyssey, challenge tradition and in their visions give us a glimpse of the future of printmaking.

Sherry Smith Bell and Ann Chernow, Curators


Note on the publication of BRAVE NEW WORLD
Sherry Smith Bell, publisher of Blue Sky Press, printed the vellum text pages, title page, colophon, curator’s statement and essay.  “Earth I” and “Earth II” are solar plate etchings of digitized images from the “Space Image Libraries” Internet website. The website images are converted into black and white transparencies. “Earth I” and “Earth II” were etched by the sun onto ultraviolet light-sensitive plates.    The plates are hand inked and printed in the traditional manner on the etching press.  The images evoke the unity of life on our planet.

 BRAVE NEW WORLD
  PORTFOLIO  COVER
  Clam shell portfolio box with   
  plexiglass window revealing Sherry
  Smith Bell’s  solar etching,“Earth I,”
  designed and bound by Sabina
  U.  Nies,  SUN BOOK  ARTS.
   Photographed at Blue Sky Press   
   Lafayette, California.
Blue Sky Press            BRAVE NEW WORLD    
Sherry Smith Bell uses high impact plastic as the printing plate instead of precious zinc or copper.  The plastic plate allows her to create a sculptural plate surface without the use of toxic acids to etch it. . Her drypoint collagraph combination print, “Eureka," is inspired by the architecture of California gold rush buildings.  "Eureka, I found it," is the shout of joy upon finding the "gold" of a new world of artists' techniques.
Judith Brodsky's "Zipporah and the Birds" is a digital construction employing photo etching with a rolled surface color.  Zipporah, Moses' wife, is the subject of her print, part of a series about ancient heroines.  Brodsky utilizes only images found through an Internet search.  Zipporah means bird in Hebrew.  Bird images, in combination with Sumerian seals, middle Eastern oil lamps, and foliage/bird decorations from medieval art are recombined, transformed.
Kathy Caraccio’s “For Clara” builds her print surface from collaged, black magazine pages.  Her print is embossed with wire relief imprinted on perforated plastic chine colle and embellished with mica flocking.  Her use of copper wire sculpture for an overlayment enhances her print's three-dimensional effect.  "For Clara” is a tribute to the artist's mother who built a life of many layers.
Susan Carter Carter's "Another Space, Another Time" editioned print is a scanned monotype, inkjet print combined with a bit of relief and a touch of serigraphy.  The impetus provided by Brave New World motivated Carter to use the computer as a complement to her more traditional printmaking.  Her imagery creates a sense of time and space based on personal experience.
Ann Chernow's "Icon" results from a computer manipulated image of a 1940's film icon Greer Garson.  This image was photo-transferred to a zinc plate, etched in traditional hard ground and then transferred to a lithographic stone and further worked with litho crayon.  In Chernow's work, women as idealized heroines achieve an iconic status.
Eduardo Fausti's print "Peace" is encapsulated in a nontoxic plastic resin solution.  He achieves a transparent effect in a material never before used in printmaking.  The word/image "Peace" circles the globe in more than twenty languages. Eduardo reveres peace as the bravest hope for the 21st century.  His use of languages encourages the viewer to consider his relationship to all people and the natural world.
Stephen Frederick’s "The Fall" uses the technique of soft ground etching with a luminous rainbow color roll of ink on handmade paper.  The poignant story of a small bird found dead at the base of an office building in New York City vividly symbolizes the experience of sudden death of nature in an urban environment.  Fredericks includes wild grasses in the print to provide a gentle final landing for the doomed bird like the "fingers of mother earth."
 
Yuji Hiratsuka’s "Globe Trekker" is a complex and richly colored mixed media print.  The "Globe Trekker" is a cultural travelogue of one man's journey through the different cultural traditions of Japan contrasted against American and European traditions.  Using an inkjet printer and chine colle on the etched surface of a copper plate, Hiratsuka draws from the ancient and contemporary to delight in the dislocations of modern life.
Lynn Klein's "Transmission of the Lamp" is a photogram of treasured objects integrated with a photographic montage.  The image is embossed and electrostatically printed on Rives.  "Transmission of the Lamp" captures the cultural passing of objects and photographs.  Her print resonates with a personal story that is open to interpretation.
Mitchell Friedman combines monotype transfer on a paper plate lithograph, which is over printed with an etching plate.  This combination creates his rich black and white print "Runaway." The narrative and allegorical quality of story telling is evident in Friedman's work.  The viewer is allowed to create a story line for the image of horse and rider.
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