Linoleum Cut Prints

Artists Describing Their Art:

Peter Lendvai - &...

Andrew Christen - My decision to focus on printmaking has a lot to do with my upbringing in central Nebraska, where I grew up on a small farm. I spent most of my time playing, fishing, and working outdoors. I learned to drive a tractor at age six and began to pick up pipe, cut grass, hoe beans - typical farmboy work. I learned to appreciate hard work and working with my hands. Printmaking allows me to relive that experience--the physical exertion of rubbing and pulling a print by hand is some of the most rewarding work I do. My upbringing taught me to appreciate not just the product of work, but the process itself. At 18, I went to work in a slaughterhouse in Lexington, where I learned plumbing, welding, electrical and mechanical systems, and honed my carpentry skills. This craftsmanship--the ability to appreciate both the result of a hard day's work and the experience of the work itself--translates to the materials, tools and processes of printmaking today. This is especially true when I cut my blocks for my prints. Understanding how certain woods will react to being carved allows me to enhance the visual experience, and at the ...

Ken Hillberry - In art and in life, dynamics of balance, integrity and tolerant interaction of all elements or participants ought to be see, experienced and maintained. At the same time, the challenge of affecting this balance is creatively encountering all changes and adapt accordingly. For some, the destination or pre-determined outcomes are sought more often than not. Then there are some who savor the journey, thus witnessing and enjoying developments along the way. I fall into the latter category. It's like watching the film develop in a darkroom. the image takes form a little at a time right before my eyes. The creative process, for me, is void of pressure and timeless. The ability and practice and discipline are central in my approach. My creative intent is to engage a viewer in thought and emotion, as well as, with their eyes. Using imagination, retrospect or model, my range of composition can be conceptual, perhaps impressionistic or abstract in application, but always developed to evoke an awareness and appreciation for the relative conditions in life experience and art form as I incisively or playfully interpret my experiences along the way. ...

David Sananman - My artwork, across different mediums, is about exploring the dimension not visible to our eyes. I am trying to bring forth into physical reality images and animation that comes from within my mind. Through the different mediums of painting, printmaking, and animation I get to discover the strengths of those particualar artmaking techniques and apply it to my abstract work. Much of my work is simply applying what I have learned of art's essences such as color, composition, technique, and theory. I derive a great sense of fun and mystery that I hope others will also form their own impressions from looking at my work....

Theo Radic - Everyone experiences drawing and painting as children. I was perhaps one year old therefore when I was first initiated into the painter's craft. I continued these universal beginnings throughout my school years and sporadic courses in college (which gave me few insights into this art). [...] I had only myself as a teacher in the art of painting. My evolution as a painter paralleled that of art history in general, beginning with my prehistoric period as a one-year-old-clutcher-of-crayolas, groping through Egyptian and Greek periods; a Renaissance period; and then neo-classicism, romanticism and naturalism; impressionism and fauvism; cubism and abstract expressionism. At nineteen I went to Europe, thirsty for scope and depth in Art which America lacks. Having established myself in the south of France, I absorbed the emanations of the modern masters who had lived and painted there. I was profoundly moved by the bizarre snow storm over La Cote d'Azur on the night of Picasso's death. No such storm had ever been seen before in April, as old-timers in Nice told me. [...] Fully acknowledging my debt to 'abstract expressionism', I nonetheless do not consider my art'abstract' - a word ...

Joan Colbert - While recurring themes and motifs are ever present in both my print work and painting, they are central to the series block prints completed over the last several years. The poet, Wallace Stevens, has been a consistent source of inspiration, but in 2006 the music of Moussorgsky became my muse. The following statement and accompanying images are from this most current series. Pictures at an Exhibition: the print series Pictures at an Exhibition. . . the title says it all. . . and disregarding that, even the most casual exposure to the music of Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition can evoke an assortment of moods and images. For years I assumed that somewhere there existed the definitive collection of artwork that was Moussorgsky's inspiration. In reality, only six pieces of Victor Hartmann's work, consisting of architectural drawing and costume design and sketches and watercolors from his travels, can be positively identified. I found the subject matter intriguing, and just a bit odd. This series began as a way for me to visualize and interpret Moussorgsky's music through Hartmann's subject matter, but became an homage to the story itself: the musician and the artist and the artwork that lives on ...