The Combination of Drawing and Printmaking Yields Poetry at the Chandler Gallery’s Small Works Salon
The new show at the Chandler Gallery breaks all the rules. Drawing is often defined by the immediate, direct gesture—the impulsive or deliberate mark mediated by the human hand—while printmaking is often indirect, involving a transfer from surface to surface with the process as a mediating factor.
The Chandler Gallery’s 2014 Small Works Salon, “Direct/Indirect,” celebrates works that combine these two contrasting yet intimately related mediums. The pieces defy definition, blurring the boundaries that separate drawing and printmaking in concept, execution and finished artwork. Juror Bill Flynn, a professor emeritus of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and an accomplished artist with a background in both mediums, says that he sought “collages that joggle your brain” along with “a little bit of poetry.”
Wendy Prellwitz’s “Departure” demonstrates how beautifully the two mediums can speak to one another. The bottom half of the paper bears the imprint of a wooden plank in gray-green ink, and the top half shows sparse gray lines from a much lighter impression. A transparent dock is outlined in red. Without the dock, the printed elements are abstract, but the dock provides a representational context. Where the gray-green ink crosses the dock, the wavy lines suggest wooden slats, but in the space on either side of the dock, the lines conjure ripples on the water. The white space above the dock and the water becomes the sky, overcast and infinite.
If Prellwitz’s piece evokes the sound of waves lapping against a post, then Robert Siegelman’s “Missing Pages” evokes the cacophony of a crowded train station. Siegelman’s collage juxtaposes a photo, handwritten text, and photocopied news clippings—including Eartha Kitt’s obituary, a review of a Pinter play, and the phrase “Learn more about Robert Motherwell”—with pencil shading and lines forming acute angles and perpendicular axes. Yellow highlighter fills shapes, scribbles across white spaces, and draws attention to a quote from the Pinter review: “words…weapons that characters use to…comfort or destroy each other.” He also includes text from a “Call for Entries” column that describes “Direct/Indirect: Small Works 2014” in a self-referential nod that hints at the multitude of layers to uncover in this image.
“Direct/Indirect” is on display at the Chandler Gallery from April 1st through May 9th with an opening reception on Sunday, April 13th, from 3-5 pm.
