Desert (Loss) - Mixed Media Prints by Ren Adams, Exhibition Opening

First Friday, November 6, 2015 marked the artist reception and exhibition opening for Desert (Loss) - Mixed Media prints by Ren Adams.

Ren Adams produces richly layered hybrid and mixed media prints, often combining five or six different printmaking techniques, and rarely producing a work with fewer than four layers. Each piece in Desert (Loss) is composed of thin, abstracted and colorful layers of serigraphy, with Akua monotype and image transfer components.

Pieces installed for Ren Adams' exhibition

Ren says of the series:
"Desert (Loss) investigates the suspension between loss and distance, through the language of a fractured desert. These remixed landscapes imply the weirdness of the West; vastness and density become memories of memory, mutations of a white-hot encounter. Historian Simon Schama says “landscape is a work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock,” just as our own stories and memories are constructed of layered moments."

"Sylmar Suspension (in my nothing)," 2015.
Layered serigraphy, image transfer, monotype. Ren Adams. Sold. 

Ren remixes a haunting combination of Hollywood-infused desert moments. She says of these landscape 'memory strata'
"My strata are flattened, graphic layers, which suggest the way recollection develops a fictional sheen, with pinpoints of lucid detail; certain moments burn and remain. The play between flatness and depth asks what it means to inhabit the space between memory and experience, where fleeting exchanges flare and dissolve. My compressed imagery is remixed, just as we shuffle memories like tracks on a playlist—moments fade and recur. Some details get replayed."

"Mojave (always)," 2015. Ren Adams. Layered serigraphy and Akua monotype. 9 x 12".

During the opening, Ren also gave a demonstration on how she uses serigraphy to create these densely layered images. She showed various different photo screens, printing and also discussed the dynamic, responsive way that she creates overlaps and transparency. Watch for the video on our YouTube channel. Also, Ren teaches serigraphy workshops at New Grounds!

Ren Adams giving her serigraphy demo. Photo courtesy Michelle Marie Sharp. 

Ren also says about the pieces in this series:

"In processing a personal sense of dislocation and loss, I am drawn to the landscape of media and television—complex spaces I’ve inhabited in life and through the ambiguity of fact-fiction. Like memory, TV offers a dual sense of place, a spark of the ‘here’ and ‘elsewhere.’ Imagery inDesert (Loss) remixes my own media-infused artwork, drawing on television, personal photographs and even Google Street View to form a composite desert; a California-New Mexico-Hollywood of past and present."

You might be wondering why there are so few action shots from the evening! In addition to being our main workshop instructor here at New Grounds, she is also our press photographer and videographer, and was too busy running around! We'll add a few more installation and action shots before the show is over. 

More shots of the work in the exhibition:

"Inglewood (substance of now)," 2015. Ren Adams. Layered serigraphy and Akua Monotype. 9 x 12".

Ren Adams' vibrant, layered Serigraphs channel a technicolor Hollywood desert. Poetry is hidden in each piece, as well. 

"Foothill Freeway & Balboa (I see you in all things)," 2015. Ren Adams.
Layered serigraphy, image transfer, Akua monotype. 9 x 12".

"Vasquez Canyon Road (in this distance)," 2015. Ren Adams. 
Layered serigraphy, Akua monotype. 9 x 12".

Each piece grapples with the distance between loss and experience, memory and contact... set to a hybrid desert that combines California and New Mexico.

Brian Giza Etching Demo

Brian Giza

 In August, New Grounds Gallery presented Body and Movement - Etchings by Brian Giza.

During the exhibition opening, Brian provided a live demonstration of his dry point techniques, plus details on his process, his combination of various traditional and non-traditional approaches to etching, and his creative use of fascinating tools to produce his fresh, figurative works. Best of all, Brian goes into detail about why he draws and the idea behind his sensitive portraiture.

If you missed the original demo, or have been dying to see it again, you're in luck! We've finished the demo video and it is now available on YouTube:

Brian's inking station for the demo

New Grounds Print Workshop and Gallery YouTube Channel

View etchings by Brian Giza on our gallery website.

Lincoln Draper - Gravure Demo Video

In July, New Grounds artist Lincoln Draper gave a gravure demonstration at the exhibition opening for our three-artist gravure show, Explorations in Gravure - 19th Century Aesthetic, 21st Century Technology. The audience loved it!

Lincoln demonstrates  inking, wiping and printing a gravure plate, and also discusses exposure and image-making. 

You can view the edited video here, on the New Grounds Print Workshop & Gallery YouTube channel!  Follow our channel, too, if you haven't already. We are always adding new videos. 

Body and Movement - Etchings by Brian Giza, Exhibition Opening Recap

A select grouping of Giza's portrait etchings

On August 7th, 2015 (First Friday) we held an exhibition opening and artist reception for our latest show, Body and Movement - Etchings by Brian Giza. 

A master draftsman, portrait and figurative artist, Brian Giza can be found at ballet studios busily sketching the dancers as they put on their shoes, stretch and rehearse. He often works on the copper plates directly rather than sketching on paper first. An accomplished thespian and professor at UTEP, every moment in his life not teaching or performing Shakespeare is dedicated to making art. Giza’s dancers come very close in skill and expression to those of Manet.

Left - Line of Swans, drypoint on copper. Right - Landscape, etching.

Left - Tess in Lilac, 3-plate gravure. Right - Three in Snow, gravure. 

Giza says of his own work:I am a former dancer and current balletomane whose work focuses on portraits, nudes, and the environment of the ballet.  

My greatest joy in art is when I can discover, and then reveal some element of beauty to the model and to the viewer.  Because of my long association with the performing arts, capturing backstage moods, moments, and personalities is a thread that runs through my work.  

Although some may see my background in art, science, theater, and dance history as eclectic, these disciplines are actually complementary...especially when rendering the art and science of dance in the printmaking medium.  

More shots of the installation

Brian Giza also gave an excellent, live printmaking demonstration on the way he develops images on copper plates, inking and printing. Giza is fond of combining different kinds of intaglio approaches on the same individual plate surface, and he frequently returns to the same plates to continue developing the image over time.

Stay tuned for our video version of his demo! We'll be editing it and sharing it here on the blog in coming weeks.

One of Giza's rich copper plates

His inking and printing demonstration set-up

Here, Brian Giza discusses a worked copper plate with one of his models and other interested fans

Detail of the plate

Did you miss the opening reception? Don't worry. The exhibition runs August 7 - 29, 2015. 

More candids from the event:

Wayne Chinander - Relief Printmaking and Registration Demo Video Update!

Our videos are getting fancier (and more informative!).

We're excited to announce that we've updated Wayne Chinander's demo video from The Cutting Edge exhibition opening. During the reception, Wayne provided a multi-plate printing demonstration, which included a glimpse of his inking, registration and printing techniques. We caught live video of Wayne in action that night, and we turned that raw material into a newly updated video for our YouTube channel.

We combined all the separate parts, added commentary and close-ups of the prints Wayne was working on--and we've even added a little splash of tango music by local talent Q Tango!

Expect great things from our future demo videos, too. We're planning to create nice, educational (and snazzy) video footage for each of our demonstrations and we may even give new polish to some of our classic videos. We hope our new and improved video footage will inspire, motivate and inform.

Stop by our YouTube Channel to see our latest work.