Among Rental Sales Gallery’s member artists are those who work with printmaking, either exclusively, or as part of a range of art that they create. Printmaking takes many forms, some of which we will be focusing on in this week’s blog, which celebrates some of those printmakers that we are lucky enough to have showcasing their works here.
The works that we have in these blogs are available for both rent and purchase. These and other prints can be seen by either coming into RSG or by searching the Gallery Catalogue on our website. Go to Category and, using the drop-down menu, select “Print” to see the shortlist.
Sue Allen
Sue is a printmaker, who has a focus on screenprinting. Her artistic directions range from nature and organic order, to abstraction and geometry, and veers repeatedly toward the Japanese aesthetic and beauty. As she says “Her cards, original limited-edition screen prints, photographs, and book arts, are distinguished, refined, elegant, and unusual.”, and we most certainly agree with that!
Elizabeth Brinton
A graduate of the University of Oregon in Fine and Applied Arts, Elizabeth is continuing to investigate the open-ended artform of printing, whilst keeping the ancient traditions of the form at the heart of her work. “Now decades into this journey,” she writes, “the pleasure of process and a newfound freedom with materials and techniques keeps it all moving into new territory.” As well as working full-time as an artist, creating works daily, Elizabeth has also established screen-printing courses, the technique that these two works demonstrate so vibrantly.
Leslie Cheney-Parr
Leslie works in a range of different media, including watercolor and acrylic, as well as printmaking. When printmaking, she usually uses the linoleum reduction method, which produces striking-looking prints like these works. Leslie’s work reflects a study of our world through landscape and animal representation. Though she has been an artist since she was a child, she is still thrilled by the study of the natural world, feeling that it remains “new” even to this day.
Bernard R. Kliks
Bernard’s prints are often abstract pieces, which take the natural world as a jumping off point. From sandstone formations to the bamboo seen in the piece above, to the Koi carp which appear in a number of his other pieces. Both of the works showcased here are monotypes. Monotyping is unusual in printmaking in that it produces a unique, unrepeatable, piece of art. The artist draws or paints onto a smooth surface and then transfers the image onto a sheet of paper by pressing the two together.
Noriko Sugita
The exquisitely-colored woodcuts of Noriko Sugita have both Eastern and Western influences. The designs have inspirations from both traditional Japanese kimonos and more contemporary anime, both of which have fantastical compositions and the motifs are traced by from memory, engraved into basswood and colored. Combining these with images of Portland itself are ways for Noriko to both understand her presence in Oregon and to discover the merging of Eastern and Western cultures. “America”, she says, “to me long ago, of course felt very surreal and as if out of a fable.” and these beautiful prints capture something of that feeling.
