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Indepth Arts News:
"Listening to the Animals: New Work by Sarah Hauser"
2001-06-22 until 2001-07-26
Woman Made Gallery
Chicago, IL,
USA United States of America
Sarah Hausers current series of woodblock prints and drawings captures a
glimpse of moments of human interaction and communication with animals. The
age-old question: What are animals thinking - Whether it is through seeing a
woman attempt to walk four Jack Russell terriers who are each running in a
different direction; feeding birds in the park and seeing the smallest bird
take off with a piece of bread bigger than he is; or while watching
documentary film footage of a chimpanzee as he sits alone on a ridge, staring
up at leaves in a highly contemplative moment.
The technique which Sarah uses to make her prints is based on traditional
Japanese woodblock printmaking, or hanga, incorporating Japanese carving
and printing tools and techniques with her own imagery and a few modern
variations. Her challenge has been to maintain the lightness and looseness
of her drawing line within the heavily technical aspect of this method.
During the past year she has been stretching the boundaries of this medium by
hand-printing in a very large format (up to around 30 x 40, whereas most
traditional Japanese prints are no larger than 11 x 15), still working in a
very loose, sketchlike style. Her most recent pieces are large images of
animals floating on Byzantine patterns, which are made using a printing
technique called frottage. Paper is placed over the carved woodblocks and
rubbed with pigment sticks and graphite, creating a very textured effect in
combination with the translucent handmade Japanese paper that she uses.
Sarah Hauser was born in San Francisco, and has lived in New York for the
past twenty years. She studied drawing at the Art Students League and Spring
Studio; sumi-e painting with Koho Yamamoto at Koho School of Sumi-e; and
painting, printmaking and papermaking at Cooper Union, Manhattan Graphics,
the Lower East Side Printshop and Dieu Donne Papermill. Her exhibitions in
the U.S. and abroad have included Barrett House, Noho Gallery (NYC), Purdue
University, Woodward Gallery (NYC), Woman-Made Gallery, Hiram Blauvelt
Museum, Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts (California), Nommo Gallery
in Kampala, and KIWA Exhibition and Tour in Japan. She has steadily built a
body of work, evolving from drawing and painting to monoprints, linocuts and
woodblock prints. During the past few years she has become completely
immersed in the Japanese method of woodblock printmaking, which she studied
with Jonathan and Miwako Glick, Kathy Caraccio, April Vollmer and Yasu
Shibata. Sarah recently assisted in teaching a Japanese woodblock class at
the Japan Society, and has demonstrated Japanese woodblock printing and
exhibited her sumi-e paintings at the annual Sakura Matsuri, or Cherry
Blossom Festival, in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. She is currently teaching
papermaking and other art projects to public school children through Dieu
Donne Papermill and Arts Connection.
IMAGE:
Lady with 4 Dogs in Central Park (1999)
Sarah Hauser
Japanese water-based woodblock print
12x8.5
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