Printmaking exhibit showcases the accessible art form

The Mid America Print Council is an organization of individuals who promote the art of printmaking, and they're showing off their pieces in a juried show in January and February.

Printmaking is not just copying a painting or picture. Printmaking is not just copying a painting or picture. It is the process of creating artistic works by printing from an original design -- which can be carved on wood, etched into metal or set into a screen -- onto a medium like paper. The MAPC exhibit will feature pieces made using several methods.

MAPC provides people and organizations with resources about the printmaking process and art appreciation.

MAPC hosts two juried art shows every year, and this year the River Campus Art Gallery at Southeast Missouri State University will host the first one. The "Mid America Print Council Members Exhibit" will open Tuesday and run through Feb. 18.

Kristin Powers Nowlin, instructor of art at Southeast, along with Emily Booth, exhibitions coordinator for the River Campus Art Gallery, juried the exhibit. Nowlin and Booth chose 25 pieces to be a part of the exhibit.

"They'll range from screenprinting to lithography, intaglio to woodblock," Nowlin said. "We picked a pretty wide range of print [styles], as well as a pretty wide range of subject matters."

The only real consistency, she said, is that all of the exhibitors are members of MAPC and that these are all original, handmade prints, not mechanically reproduced prints.

Charles Beneke, past president of the MAPC and printmaking teacher at the Mary Schiller Myers School of Art at the University of Akron, has two pieces on display in this exhibit, "Saved" and "Through a Glass Darkly."

"I've been doing some work related to climate change for several years, and I felt as though, for a long time, I had been looking at other people's data and imagery and reading and learning about the effects of climate change," Beneke said.

Beneke received a grant from the University of Akron and was able to travel to Greenland. He hiked along ice fjords and hiked up onto the Greenland ice sheet.

"We hear so much about climate change and global warming and things like that, and I think that kind of distance of Greenland and the idea of a climate that's just all rock and ice is so foreign to us that it's kind of hard to wrap our heads around these things," Beneke said.

Beneke is using his artwork to give people another way of visualizing a hot-button issue like climate change. He compares viewing his pieces to watching a special on National Geographic or hearing a speaker on the subject.

Both of Beneke's pieces incorporate different media that fall under the printmaking umbrella.

"Each of those different media has its own characteristics and its own voice," he said.

For these pieces, Beneke used lithography, screenprint and photogravure, an antiquated etching process developed in the 1830s.

Because of the possibility for minute changes in design, each printed piece is considered an original work.

"One of the things that are really unique about printmaking is the ability to make multiples," Nowlin said. "Even though we might make an edition of 10 prints, we would consider each one of those 10 an original work of art."

Nowlin said that because of that, prints are typically less expensive and therefore more accessible to collectors than paintings and other forms of art.

"I think what's great about it is that you can make art for the masses, so that more people can enjoy your work at a much lower price," Nowlin said. "There's a long history in printmaking ... even going back to the Mexican revolutionaries using printmaking as a way to protest."

Nowlin said the majority of the art showcased at this MAPC Members Exhibit will be for sale.

She and Booth will hold a jurors' lecture about the collection from noon to 1 p.m. Jan. 26 in the Convocation Center at the River Campus. They will discuss the process of and challenges faced when jurying pieces of mixed media.

The show will have a First Friday reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Feb. 4.

CQ

Pertinent address: River Campus Art Gallery, Seminary Building Room 106

518 S. Fountain St.

Cape Girardeau, MO 63701