Links to gallery of contemporary drawings

 

I keep an “art library” on my computer where I file images of artists work which I find thought provoking or influential. These are some artists I pulled from my “library” when I started making lithographs here in China and was required to make “xi” (detailed) work in order to have a standard against which I could compare my final prints (though I couldn’t resist throwing in a few that don’t fit this category).

You will find the gallery of works in the previous post here. Below I have listed artists in the order shown with links to their websites:

Alison Moffet,  Anita Hunt,   Christopher Ganz, Deborah Rockman,  Eva Hesse,   Henry Moore, Hoss Haley,   Joy Gerrard,  Julie Mehretu, Katherine Taylor,        Lin Tianmiao,  Mark  Bradford, Mark Zunino,  Martin Lewis,  Mary Borgman, Tom Knechtal,  Whistler, Wayne Thiebaud, Tony de los Reyes,  Tom Knechtal

 

What is contemporary drawing? (via Edel Assanti Project Space)

more thoughts on contemporary drawing…

Kitty Hudson examines the role of drawing in contemporary art practice. Drawings seem to be enjoying a modest renaissance. Maybe it is coincidental that I have visited a number of exhibitions in succession either focusing wholly on drawings or giving them prominence amongst other artistic practices. Not that drawing has ever slipped off the radar – it is at the core of all artistic practice, one of the basic building blocks of art. Yet there is a … Read More

via Edel Assanti Project Space

More Pictures from Daqing

My friend Zeng Xuewu, who directs the China Dapu International Artists Residency in Daqing, has posted more pictures from the Daqing residency. Here are a few…

There are many more on his blog: http://blog.artintern.net/blogs/index/zhengxuewu

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The Sketchbook #1: drawing experimentation

I have been trying to loosen up, take more risks and work on processing some of what I have learned while in China. While I have been continuing my normal style of drawing I am also spending part of each day “playing”: doing things that are spontaneous, reacting to my current situation, saying things I would normally consider private, drawing more hastily than usual.

In the States I often made art by finding a point at which I run into a wall, either a physical barrier or some form of psychological resistance. At the point where there is tension something is happening worth talking about. Why is the wall there? How far does the wall go? I am not so much interested in reacting to the wall as exploring the interface, the place where the tension is created, the stone against my hand. This connects to my interest in urban space.  I am fascinated by the space between people in a crowd and how pedestrians use space to their best advantage but are also sometimes frustrated by that space’s limitations. In my previous work I thought about how the infrastructure of Detroit ended up exacerbating inequalities and urban to sub-urban movement as the highways intentionally were built to bypass or bisect large areas of the city.

In moving to China, studying intensive language and starting lithography there were such a plethora of experiences (starting with the language barrier) that this sense of tension or focus was quickly drowned out in the every day tasks. If before I could say I metaphorically drew on walls, now I found myself in a construction zone where the walls are hidden behind piles of bricks.

These new drawings are not finished products but rather ways of processing my time in a visual form. One drawing is a rough calendar of my grant with conversations I have had plotted against it. In the process of making these drawings the events I am recording become illegible, covered over by other events. As I work the pieces destroy themselves while at the same time I start to pull patterns and meaning out of them. I don’t yet know how this will feed into the finished work I make, but I feel that it is worth recording here as a beginning of something…

Sketchbook #1: Process Sketches (incomplete/ early versions)

 

 

 

 

 

Some Meditations on the New Media/Traditional Media Divide and Problems Living in Between

(excerpt)

…I am living in the middle of Beijing’s art scene, just a few minutes from 798 and CaoChangdi. For theoretical discussions with art historians, critics and various new media artists I have Homeshop. Despite all the art around me I sometimes feel a bit vitamin deficient.

I am looking for art that goes beyond a realistic portrait or still life, that pushes boundaries and surprises me or draws me in. In particular I am craving examples of work that are not only conceptually interesting but also are in some way or another transferable to my own work.

Oil painting seems to be the medium of choice in Beijing right now. I have also seen some great installation art and experimental film, but it often seems as if new and experimental all gets lumped into the realm of new media.

I am not an oil painter, and while I sometimes work in media considered “new,” I am more interested in the integration of this media with other aspects of art and life than with the preoccupation over boundaries between the supposedly “new” and the supposedly “traditional.”

I often feel that I am between categories, particularly while in China. I am not looking to create some form of “pure art” produced in so many painting and drawing academies, the sort that either recalls an idealized notion of the classical West or reiterates pop and expressionism. I use ink but I do not paint “guohua” (Chinese painting). When I interact with my friends who are conceptual I often find myself equally out of place. For all our similarities, I often make two dimensional, physically demanding work which doesn’t fall neatly into the “new media” category.

I love much of the work here, but sometimes feel the deep divides between categories box me in or wall me out…

Tate Papers Issue 14 Autumn 2010: Ideas in Transmission: LeWitt’s Wall Drawings and the Question of Medium

Tate Papers Issue 14 Autumn 2010: Anna Lovatt. This paper is about Sol LeWitt’s Drawings.

One of my good friends here in China has been encouraging me to watch some of the talks at the Tate online. I just stumbled across this paper and realized that the Tate also has an online journal.

While in China I have been trying to soak up as much going around me as possible and learn first hand about the art scene. I often feel like I should take advantage of every minute I have here.

On the occasions that I have taken an hour or two to read about something not directly about Chinese contemporary art I have been surprised though. I find my time here has changed not only the way I think but also the way I see. It is only when I come back to look at artists I used to be familiar with, like Sol LeWitt, that I realize how much my perspective has shifted. It feels as if I am seeing these old works for the first time and that they seem startling, fresh and unexpected.

While this perhaps signals how much reverse culture shock I will experience when I return to the states, I have a suspicion that it won’t be until I try to make the transition that I will discover how much I have learned and will really begin to see the impact this experience has had on my own drawing and printmaking.

Experimenting with Ink and Acrylic Washes at Dapu International Art Center in Daqing

I have been experimenting with leaving more white space in the wash paintings. Before I was using the acrylic washes to tint the entire background of the painting and then working in ink on top of it. Now I am trying to see what happens if I balance the two methods.

 

 

Daqing Grasslands Drawing in Graphite: Work from Dapu International Art Center

This is a large drawing I made while at the Dapu International Art Center in Daqing, Heilongjiang Province, China.

I started this image after noticing all of the different types of grasses that grew along the edge of the road between the art center and one of the universities. According to Zheng Xuewu, the entire area had been fields of grass the previous year. Now the buildings in the new “cultural” area were almost complete.

I remembered seeing large stretches of grassland as we drove in to Daqing. I grew up in the foothills and mountains of North Carolina and have always regarded “flat” as boring bordering on slightly frightening since a person walking through a field of grass suddenly becomes the tallest thing. But these grasslands were beautiful. Xuewu told us that this part of Heilongjiang was where the grasslands that swept through inner and outer Mongolia, all the way across northern China, started. As I worked on the drawing I began to appreciate more and more the great variety of grasses and the ways each type made different patterns and appeared soft or sharp and bristly even from a distance. In my room my windowsill was lined with plants I collected along the edge of the road.

I was reminded of my classmate from Michigan, Catherine Meier.  She used to work in  the great plains of the United States. During graduate school she made a series of woodblock prints based on the grasslands. Later she went to Mongolia to study nomadic culture. Much of her recent work has been stop motion animation based on large graphite drawings of  the plains. In the video individual blades of grass bend and move in the wind. As I worked on the drawing in Daqing I kept thinking about her work. There was something appealing in the ways in which something so apparently simple as drawing a field or a wetland was so infinitely variable. I realized I not only had to think about the ways the different species of plants layered, intertwined and created overall textures but also how invisible forces like  light and wind and water were indicated by the way the blades of grass bent or cast shadows.

I also later learned that the wetlands surrounding Daqing’s hundred lakes was the largest in China. We visited the wetlands once during my stay. Sadly the light was bad that day and it was already late for birding (11:00), but still I saw a wide variety of ducks and herons. I believe the wetlands are also a stop for rare cranes. The area is a very important habitat for migratory birds, on a rout through Russia and sometimes all the way over to Europe.

Visually there was very little impact of the oil industry on the landscape. The oil drills themselves looked like small bobbing birds in the distance, or like a child’s toy. Still, I remember how at Green River Preserve, a summer ecology camp in the North Carolina mountains, we found that even the presence of a gravel road had a significant impact on the diversity of small water insects living in nearby streams, which in turn could alter the entire food chain. Might the drilling and development have an impact on the beautiful grasslands and wetlands and the birds who took sanctuary their even though it appeared to be so expansive?

I was surprised many people I talked to had never visited the wetlands even though they had grown up in Daqing. It was such a beautiful place, especially after the crowds and traffic and pollution of a big city. At home I know we would have been taken to the wetlands on class field trips and would have had to fill out worksheets identifying birds and plants. I wonder if children will get to go on those sorts of field trips now that Daqing is prospering.

From the studio: ink painting and drawing at the Dapu International Art Center

This is one of the images ZhenZhen took to put on the China Dapu International Art Center website. The studios are absolutely beautiful. We were housed on the 4th floor of the center and the sun would come in through the big windows all morning. Every studio in the center had wonderful light. We also had a bathroom with a shower, a bed, wardrobe, desk, office chair, stand up fan, easel, drawing board and best of all this huge rolling painting table. They even provided us with a clothes rack to dry our clothes on (right before this picture was taken I was frantically taking everything off the clothes rack and putting it in my closet so my underwear wouldn’t appear on the internet). My only problem was that the walls, like most Chinese studios, were made of concrete, which meant that it is almost impossible to attach anything to the walls without using very large nails. Since I was planning on doing large drawings during the residency, this was a bit of a problem. But since we were in a construction site I easily found a way to hang my work by using some tough plastic strapping which I nailed to the wall and clipped my drawings to.  Once I had this set up I was ready to work.

In this picture I am working on the acrylic and ink wash painting behind me.  I’ve also been experimenting with ink wash on various sorts of Chinese paper that Peter brought and practicing my calligraphy, which while not brilliant helps me increase my coordination and focus.

Arrival at Dapu International Art Center

 

So I am finally back to blogging again and have a lot to catch up on. I just came back from a wonderful trip out west to Dunhuang and Chengdu.

Now I am getting an opportunity to see a very different part of the country. I am at the Dapu International Art Center Residency Program in Daqing. Daqing is a large oil mining city in Heilongjiang province in far north-eastern China which I will write more about in my next post.

A group of international artists and the residency program director, Zheng Xuewu all drove up from Beijing. When we arrived in Daqing we were met at the bridge by a bicycle team and people from the art center.

 

US Presses, Galleries and Blogs Specializing in Printmaking

I will continue to add entries and details to this post…

Tamarind  Institute

“Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Inc. (TLW) was founded in Los Angeles in 1960 as a means to “rescue” the dying art of lithography. Fully funded by the Ford Foundation until it became affiliated with the University of New Mexico in 1970.”

“Tamarind’s two-part printer training program is designed for students who wish to pursue careers as fine art collaborative printers.”

Tamarind Lithography Print Gallery

Gunther Gerzo Syn (84-330) color lithograph Edition 30

gallery

nicola lopez

DCimPRINT | prints, printmaking, art and life: The blog for the Washington Printmakers’ Gallery

NSW 2010 winning print “Mandala” by Kiyomi Baird

Pyramid Atlantic blog:

is a ” non-profit contemporary arts center dedicated to the creation and appreciation of hand papermaking, printmaking, digital arts, and the art of the book.”

it is associated with the Washington Printmakes’ Gallery

print  shop includes:

-a 36″ x 60″ American French Tool etching press
-a 36″ x 60 ” Takach-Garfield lithography press
-Rollers and brayers, plate warmers, and drying racks
-Silkscreen, lithography and solar plate equipment and a graphic arts darkroom.
-a Nuarc Metal Halide Exposure System platemaker and Digital imaging equipment including an Epson 2200 printer

Lithographic Materials Photographic Glossary in English and Chinese

The following glossary is organized by the steps in the process of lithography, from graining the stone to printing the edition.

graining the stone

carborundum is a fine black gritty powder made out of silicone carbide which is used to grind the litho stone before beginning to draw on it.

carborundum from takach press

Sand 沙, we use at CAFA is a teal colored powder that comes in a number of grits. My teacher recommended I use 60, 80, 120 and 180. I believe it varies from the carborundum which is black or gray, but it seems to have the same use.

Gum Arabic has to be steeped in water over night and then filtered

graining is completed and I can now start drawing on the stone

Invention of Lithography

I am writing a post about the history of Lithography to give some sense of the medium I am working with and its larger historical context.

“Lithography was invented around 1796 in Germany by an otherwise unknown Bavarian playwright, Alois Senefelder, who accidentally discovered that he could duplicate his scripts by writing them in greasy crayon on slabs of limestone and then printing them with rolled-on ink.”– Lithography in the Nineteenth Century, metmuseum.org

Lithography: steps of the process

Below are my notes about the process of lithography. The steps listed describe the way I have learned at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Since I received all of my instruction in Chinese some of the names of the terms may not match up with the standard ones used in the US and Europe. At the Central Academy we use a combination of local, Japanese and American materials. This means that the process varies from the techniques I learned in Michigan. Tamarind press in New Mexico has published an excellent book which gives detailed instructions for the standard techniques used in the US.

Gum Process

the gum process is the first process done once the image on the stone is completely drawn
1. add whiting to stone and lightly rub with cotton to reduce oil, wipe till brushed off 加滑石粉，用棉花擦石头
2. wipe stone clean with water加静水，擦
3. cover stone with clean gum, don’t let dry 加干净的阿拉伯胶
4. test acidic gum on stone. Find a clean place on the stone to test. Acidic gum should bubble lightly within about 2 seconds if at right acidity, if only one or two bubbles add a little acid, if so many bubbles almost white add a little gum, test again. While testing wipe stone periodically with clean gum to keep from drying试试如果阿拉伯胶太酸，还是酸不够
5. paint darkest part of drawing on stone with acidic gum, if most of image light go over it 2 times
6. add cotton to acidic gum, use to fist wipe edges and then wipe quickly across whole stone
7. ring sponge and wipe down stone, add a little clean gum to the stone
8. wipe with clean gum sponge and then pat dry to give rough but small pebbled texture like orange peel. Do not want bubbles but also don’t want it to be smooth
9. fan dry stone and then protect with paper
10. rinse out gum sponge and put away acid etc…
11. let sit 10 hours

Ink Process

After the stone has been etched with acid (gum process) the drawing materials on the stone need to be substituted for ink so that the image can be printed.
1. with clean sponge wipe stone with water to wash off gum
2. add clean gum and cover stone
3. use folded gauze/tarlatan to buff gum into stone, switch sides of tarlatan as cleaning and buff until dry (white)
4. Dry stone with fan. It is important to keep dry! Water drops on fan can damage image
5. pour turpentine over stone and with cotton cloth clean off crayon (1st time) or ink (2nd time and after), repeating until no black left on stone
6. prepare ink slab and roll out area the same size as stone. Ink should be fairly stiff and roll out texture should be finely textured like litho stone (should be able to see texture of stone slab through ink) do not roll up with too much ink or else image will fill in too fast
7. add lots of water to stone
8. remove ink with clean roller, don’t let stone dry
9. when image completely clear and no ink on blank area of stone or edges wash off roller with water and put away
10. use sponge to dry majority of water off stone- have now replaced crayon with ink
11. clean edges of stone with cloth and sandpaper or finger if necessary
12. roll up roller from slab
13. make sure stone is wet but without puddles (almost dry)- do this by first wiping with wet sponge then dry sponge
14. roll up with ink, then wipe with wet sponge then dry sponge– repeat, each time at end of roll gently lifting roller
15. dry stone
16. return to step one of gum process (add whiting)
17. when gum process repeated let sit 1 hour

Proofing

The first time the stone is inked it needs to sit and then be etched a second time to reinforce the image and make it more stable. In other words, the second etch makes helps the oily places on the stone stay oily and the clean/wet areas of the stone stay clean. At this point then the stone can be inked and printed. The first few prints pulled from a stone are called the proofs because they are test prints. I use the test prints to figure out how much ink should be added to the stone to create a clear image (not to light and not to dark). The proof also lets me check if there are any corrections I need to make to the image before printing. If I correct the print I need to then re-etch it and let it sit for 10 hours so that the corrections are also stable.
1. after one hour can return to step one of ink process (washing off gum) through step 14.(rolling up stone with ink), at this point can pull the first proof
2. At this point wet the paper
2. re-ink (12,13,14) proof….etc…usually print 3 proofs,
3. after 3rd proof re-ink and continue through step 15,
4. then re-gum
5. let sit 10 hours

Printing

Once a good proof has been pulled and the image is fully corrected and properly etched I can start printing an edition. An edition means that a number of prints are pulled from the stone. It is important that all the prints in an edition are the same quality/darkness/contrast etc… unless it is a variable edition.

1. after one hour can return to step one of ink process (washing off gum) through step 14.(rolling up stone with ink)
2. at this point can print edition, re-ink (12,13,14) print….etc…usually print edition of 30 prints,
3. for best results after 15th print re-ink and continue through step 15,
4. then re-gum
5. let sit 15 minutes,
6. return to step one of ink process (washing off gum) through step 14.(rolling up stone with ink),
7. at this point can print second 15 prints of edition, re-ink (12,13,14) print….etc…
8. when finished re-gum for further printing or grind off image and start new work

From Yonghegong to Wangjing city snapshots

More on Alternative Art Spaces in Beijing

There have been some interesting projects, openings and film screenings I have been going to over the last couple of weeks:

Homeshop is an alternative art space in Beijing located in a Hutong near the Lama temple. It is described on their website: “HomeShop began as a storefront residence and artist initiative in Beijing, 2008. .. Combining a storefront activity space, work studios and service desk, HomeShop questions existing models of economic and artistic production as an exploration of the micropolitical possibilities of the everyday.”  Homeshop has a blog that covers a range of topics about art, china and urban space which can be visited at: http://www.homeshopbeijing.org/blog/.  Homeshop has a reading group that meats to discuss art theory, as well as being a place that hosts a number of artistic events such as film screenings and the re-farm project.

One of the projects going on at homeshop is connected to the re-farm project. A description of the general project can be found at http://www.refarmthecity.org/blog/about-refarm-the-city. Re:farm uses digital technology in conjunction with urban gardening practices to reintegrate urban living with agriculture. I haven’t been involved in the technological part of the project, which I believe involves designing “smart” watering systems. Last week we started gathering planters (discarded mango baskets) and repairing them to use for a roof top garden at homeshop. We also discussed the problem of finding dirt and appropriate seeds (in order for the garden to be sustainable seeds from the plants grown this year need to be usable for re-seeding- some modified seeds can’t be replanted the following year). There was also discussion about rain gathering techniques and the problem of Beijing drought. Would there be enough water to make growing a garden here really feasible? re-farm also helps with/ participates in the country fair, a monthly organic farmers market.

Chinese ink and acrylic wash painting in home studio

My new studio set up…

under-painting, ink and acrylic