A tribute and an experiment in technology

When renowned artist Robert Rauchenberg played Scrabble with his mother, they would allow a word to be used if they agreed it deserved to be in the dictionary. Likewise, images melded to other images can make a new kind of sense.

That is the impression left by "Sarah Riley: Prints and Watercolors," an exhibition now at the Kelsen Gallery. The gallery at 13 S. Spanish St. is open from noon-5 p.m. weekdays. The exhibition continues through Jan. 2.

A tumultuous year is concluding in Riley's life. The associate professor of art at Southeast spent the fall 2000 semester on sabbatical exploring new art techniques. She took her children, William and Elizabeth, along when she taught in London during the past spring semester. Her father, Dr. Charles Russell Riley, died last summer shortly after she returned home to America.

Her father and mother, new art techniques and London figure prominently in the new show. One of the largest works is a computer montage that includes a photograph of Riley's father playing the piano for her mother. They were stationed in London in the Medical Corps during World War II. The photo was taken in Germany shortly before they were discharged.

The montage also includes Riley's own photographs of clouds and a torso and hand along with a drawing of a hand of Riley's son, William, made on a trip to museums in Paris.

A commercial company enlarged the print, using pigment-based ink and archival paper for permanency.

The exhibit is dedicated to Riley's father, a physician who could have been a concert pianist, she says. He encouraged his daughter's interest in art even before she knew she had one. Some prints in the exhibit include photographs her father took with his Leica.

Another series of prints is based on photographs Riley took of the Aspen/Sante Fe Dance Company while on sabbatical.

Many of the works in the show are archival giclee prints, a fancy term for computer montages. Using the computer program called Photoshop, artists can manipulate images and change colors with the stroke of a keyboard.

Artists interested in printmaking are discovering that a computer can produce effects similar to those made with lithograph techniques without having to use toxic acids and petroleum-based distillates.

"With the computer you can do a lot of things that were toxic and laborious," Riley says.

Many universities are getting rid of the art labs where these chemicals have been used. Non-toxic chemicals are now available that do the job as well.

"In England universities have been told to clean up their printmaking labs or they will shut them down," Riley said.

She is teaching printmaking this semester and next semester at Southeast. She calls the computer montages "a further development. They really do look like lithographs."

One of the prints is based on an etching/aquatint she made of her father 20 years ago layered onto a photograph of her mother.

Some of the works are unique, in the sense that Riley worked with the image after the print was made. Some of the works are reproducible. In theory, the artist destroys the file that produced the print just as Rembrandt struck his plates afterward to keep them from being reproduced.

The use of new technology is an evolution in Riley's work, but she always has juxtaposed different images to create a new effect.

The smaller watercolors in the show were accomplished the old-fashioned way -- with a paint brush. Riley handpainted the watercolors while in London and on sojourns to Italy to see the sun.

She also painted by hand the large triptych titled "Morning Glory Pool."

Riley is not sure if her own future as an artist lies in a keyboard. "Sometimes you want to take things out of the computer and work with them," she says.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182