The challenge of organizing the Japan-Calgary Printmakers Exchange Exhibition encompassed limitations that meant the shows that were seen on the two different continents featured a few different works. By and large, the prints in the exchange adhered to traditional two-dimensional formats, a consideration based upon the practical logistics, more than for lack of large-scale mixed media works.
“Limitations of space and funding meant we were restricted in what we could transport overseas,” curator Bill Laing admitted. “I literally had to pack up the art in a single crate. When the first show Japan opened, it was obvious that the technical achievements of our Canadian student printmakers weren’t fully represented because of size restrictions.”
The two separate Canadian venues where the exhibition is on, the University of Calgary’s Dean of Fine Arts Gallery and the University Theatre Gallery, both in different blocks of Craigie Hall on campus, allow for the Calgary artists to not only show much larger pieces—works that cannot be simply packed in a narrow crate—but for the form of the prints to break free from traditional two-dimensional representation:
Edwin Herrenschmidt: Integrating Concept with Form
Calgary's Burnt Toast Studio member (Alberta College of Art + Design graduate), Edwin Herrenschmidt utilized bas relief elements in his 2009 mixed media on wood diptych Dreamstate of Consciousness. This remarkable piece illustrates the id as not only separate and a mirror expression of our experience of reality, but impinging upon and shaping it:
- The print features two-panels, one on top of the other, depicting the silhouette of a man. In the lower panel, rendered with opaque ink, the figure appears to be going about his business, walking along a city sidewalk.
- The same man's form is shown upside down and in an altered position, as though 'floating at rest' in the upper panel. This shape is not inked in, but left to reveal the texture of the wood grain underneath it. Only the negative space has been filled with colour and shape.
- The angular forms like columns of a pipe organ or outlines of skyscrapers surrounding the man protrude from the surface of the lower wooden panel toward the viewer, extending the visual space outward.
Eveline Kolijn: Having Your Cake and Eating it Too
ACAD graduate', Eveline Kolijn's playful Coral Kolaidescycle assembled an intricate linocut pattern into a series of printed and folded paper sculptures much like the folded paper ‘fortune-teller’ games which are part of the North American schoolyard. Her sculptures evoke both fractals and origami.
- The first print is displayed without cuts and folds to illustrate the form before the third dimension of depth has been added to it.
- Displayed on plinths in front of the flat print, the three folded sculptures demonstrate a strong circular shape from which printed pyramidal points rise.
- Through this process Kolijn shows how three-dimensional space in sculpture hides the perception of at least part of the materials used in an art piece, an experience akin to loss when the raw material is as beautiful as one of Kolijn’s linocuts.
In this manner, Kolijn’s piece dips into the realm of contemporary process-driven art, without completely submerging.
Takino Akiho: Utilizing Texture to Create Depth through Shadows
Kolijn and Herrenschmidt's work contrasts with the only piece from Japan during the Canadian leg of the tour which added the dimension of physical depth: Forte, 2009, by Takino Akiho from Kyoto City University of Fine Arts, a Polymer Intaglio which utilizes light embossing and stamp-work on a textured fibre surface to create shadows.
Laing did not mention whether the Kyoto and other Japanese gallery venues allowed their student printmakers to extend the vision of their work into other dimensions and process-driven work, but he did express satisfaction with being able to display larger Canadian works in Calgary.
The Japan-Calgary Printmakers' Exchange Exhibition is showing at the University of Calgary Dean of Fine Arts Gallery and Theatre Gallery until April 30th, 2010.
Simone Keiran - Simone Keiran’s book A Brief History of Western Sculpture, Quantum Books, was released at the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair. Her articles ...
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