Angie Lewin at YSP

 Finally got to see Angie Lewin's exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I only thought of her as a lino cut printer but I now appreciate the range of print techniques that she uses. There were screenprints, lithos and some lovely little woodcuts.

 I was particularly interested in some one off pieces that Angie had made. She printed onto Japanese paper then collaged these onto small pieces of weathered wood.

This may be a technique that I can explore, that would allow me to print onto different surfaces.

MoMA, New York

Several pieces interested me particularly at MoMA. They had an example of Marcel Duchamp's 'Box in a Valise'. He made more than 300 of these 'portable museums' as he called them. This one consists of 68 of his works in miniature, creating an archive of his career. The technique used is a collotype print. Duchamp had worked as a commercial printer and used his knowledge to make these high quality reproductions of his original work.

They had a small collection of Joseph Cornell's work on display. He juxtaposed collections of found objects, often with little or no clear connections, into boxes. The viewer is free to make their own individual interpretations of these collections of objects.

Ferran Adria at The Drawing Center, New York

elBulli was a world renowned restaurant in Barcelona and Ferran Adria its pioneering chef. This exhibition at the Drawing Center in SoHo was entitled 'Notes on Creativity'. It featured his sketches, diagrams, notebooks, charts and lists which archive the whole creative and intellectual process of developing his dishes. Ferran Adria gave an introduction to the exhibition, talking about his philosophy and his relationship with artist Richard Hamilton.

The New Museum, Bowery, NY.

The New Museum at the Bowery in the Lower East Side reminded me very much of the New Art Gallery in Walsall. I was lucky that Chris Burden's 'Extreme Measures' exhibition was still on, even though their website said it was over. The view from the roof was also terrific.

New York Trip

Freezing temperatures made for some great photos of New York in the snow. My favourite places where Central Park and the High Line.

Studio Prints at The New Art Gallery Walsall

Yesterday I visited Walsall Art Gallery. I especially wanted to see the small exhibit of prints produced at the Studio Prints workshop in London. Dorothea Wright and Marc Balakjian ran the workshop for 40 years until it's closure in 2011. They collaborated with many leading artists during that time, including Lucian Freud who has close connections with Walsall Art Gallery. Several of Freud's etchings were on display, such as 'The Painter's Garden' below.

 This close up shows the frenetic marks etched into the plate, as well as the areas of ink that were left on its surface. Of particular interest was a print by Paula Rego called 'Encampment', shown below. She used etching and aquatint techniques in this narrative scene.

I particularly like the strong contrasts achieved with this technique. The close up I photographed below shows the etched line combined with the tonal range of the aquatint.

Another print that caught my attention was by Stephen Conroy called 'Silence'. This was a drypoint print that again used strong contrasts to create a spectre like image of a young man. A dense network of marks have been made in areas of the plate - I suspect with a mezzotint rocker or a roulette tool.

I would like to experiment with these techniques to create images based on some of the panoramic photographs I have been taking.