Prints Archives - Iskra Fine Art

Introducing the Travelers Suite | A New Affordable Print Series for the Holidays

December 4, 2019 by Iskra Leave a Comment

River House landscape by Iskra — “River House,” Archival pigment print © Iskra Johnson

Greetings from the road! I have begun to travel for the first time in years, with my eyes far away. I hardly remember how to pack my bags, much less a passport, so I am starting with what’s close, Portland and Victoria, within easy flight for a windblown gull. It has been a difficult couple of months. Many of you know that my mother passed away in September. It was a wrenching loss, and her life and passing are chronicled in my remembrance here and in the obituary written by the New York Times. My mother was a writer and activist, and her last book, published at 85, was her traveler memoir, titled Seeing for Myself: A Political Traveler’s Memoir. This coming year is dedicated to her memory, and to her adventurous spirit.

From a series called “Traveler”, the new prints here are inspired by the mind state of journeys far and near. Portals, gates, trains, sky, the glimpse from the window as scenes overlay with memory and time and possibility expands. These are multiple exposure images begun in my phone as a glimpse of “something” – captured in a split second and later reflected upon. A double exposure is an acknowledgment that we are never in just one place in time. The exposure is random, but not. Always there is the chance of unexpected poetry in how images blend and collide. You can ask yourself questions like: is the composition balanced? Is there a contrast of dark and light and shapes and mood? Or you can ask the existential version: 1) When is a splatter a flight of birds? 2) When is a blur a memory? 3) When is a memory a lie? 4) When is a lie the truth…..

The new series is printed in affordable editions of 50 with an image size of 12 x 16 on 17 x 22 sheets of German Etching. The prints are sold unframed in my shop for $150 including shipping. I welcome studio visits for local friends and art lovers. Take a look and let me know what you think. (Click through on each image to view large scale and in situ.)

Please Come Back (Before I Forget You) © Iskra Johnson

Silver Train Vista (Coast Starlight) limited edition print — Silver Train Vista (Coast Starlight) © Iskra Johnson

Facade (Smith Tower) print by Iskra — Facade (Smith Tower), © Iskra Johnson

Harbor Walk (Hudson Bay) print by Iskra — Harbor Walk, © Iskra Johnson

The Journey Through, abstract landscape — The Journey Through, ©Iskra Johnson

Island Portal (Vashon),print by Iskra — Island Portal (Vashon), © Iskra Johnson

* And…in case you forgot:

Tomorrow night 6-7:30, Under the Influence, opens at SAM Gallery — see you there with bells on!

Iskra in Under the Influence, Opening December 5 at SAM Gallery

November 22, 2019 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Plum Wine Iskra SAM Show — “Plum Wine,” limited edition print on panel, 24 x 36 © Iskra Johnson

You are invited to the opening of

Under the Influence

at SAM Gallery

December 5, 6 – 7:30 PM
Seattle Art Museum, 1300 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98101

Artists influenced by Asia are featured in SAM Gallery’s final show of the year. I am excited to be part of this group of artists including Deborah Bell, Alfred Harris, Laura Van Horne and Junko Yamamoto. Each of us is influenced by Asia in very different ways, involving surface, paper, collage, markmaking and photographic innovations. Join in this festive opening and celebrate the Asian influence on Northwest Contemporary art.

My work in this exhibit will show a new way of presenting my work on panel. The limited edition prints are meticulously mounted and sealed in layers of cold wax medium, which creates a subtle hand crafted sheen. Without traditional framing the work becomes an immediate experience of surface and color, unimpeded by reflections. The surfaces are hard to photograph, but here is a capture in the studio showing “As Above So Below,” one of the works that will be shown. If you would like to preview and reserve before the opening I will have these pieces in the studio through next Tuesday before they are delivered to the gallery. Give me a shout and I would be happy to show you in person. There will be an edition of 5 available for each piece, framed traditionally in plexiglass and brushed silver, or mounted in cold wax on panel. All sales through SAM Gallery.

Archival print mounted on panel by Iskra — Print mounted on panel with cold wax

“The Heron,” archival pigment print mounted on panel © Iskra Johnson

I look forward to seeing you to celebrate the launch of the winter holidays!

New Architectural Abstractions: The Scaffold Series

June 5, 2019 by Iskra Leave a Comment

"Cloud Scaffold" print by Iskra Fine Art — “Cloud Scaffold,” Limited edition print.

Today I am excited to show some new additions to the Scaffold series. At construction sites I am always drawn to the scaffolding around buildings. I am fascinated by their diagrammatic quality, and the way they point to geometric systems in simultaneous plan view and elevation. They layer a grid of abstraction over the landscape of the built environment, with infinite variation. They are both a structure and a space: mostly space, enclosed by tenuous lines that can hold up a fleet of construction workers or a wall or the hull of a ship on shore. They are filigree and lattice, ornament and infrastructure.

"Sari Scaffold" print by Iskra — “Sari Scaffold,” limited edition print

When construction projects are draped in tarps it is like a huge theater project. The massive fabric becomes an archetype of the feminine, laying an atmosphere of mystery and sensuality over the hard grid. As I worked on “Sari Scaffold” it began to resemble the silk threads of a sari.

"Night Scaffold," print by Iskra — “Night Scaffold,” limited edition print

What I love about the scaffold theme is not just its abstract qualities, but its metaphors. If you build anything, whether it’s a house or a life, you need a structure to hold it up as you go. The structure can be a set of words, a song, a belief, or a beam you actually stand on while you reach. Sometimes the scaffold is simply a question. What if I walk out on the edge? What if I fall? And what will I see as I grab the rope and hang out in space seeing things I would never see any other way?

The Fifth Step print by Iskra — “The Fifth Step,” limited edition print

You could say the stair is the birth of the scaffold. This particular stair lived for about a year behind the opera house as it was being demolitioned and rebuilt. One day it disappeared – or perhaps it gave birth to a latticework of stairs that reach to the sky. [Read more…]

Introducing the Heavy Metal Hydrant Suite: Limited Edition Industrial Prints from Iskra

September 18, 2018 by Iskra Leave a Comment

My hydrant iskra collection — Meet Iowa No.4, My personal Fire hydrant

It is time to come clean about fire hydrants: I love them. In a world teetering between fire and flood, with catastrophe pending on every front, I do love a piece of heavy metal I cannot lift. I have my own brilliant yellow hydrant in front of my house, and it makes me happy every time I come home and see it there, surrounded by equally yellow dandelions. I feel safe. Put together with flawless arrangements of bolts and screwplates and circles and cones and handed down through hundreds of years from men with rough hands and wrenches, the hydrant is unarguably TRUE. Hydrants are valiant, like German Shepherds, and they have no existential doubts, although I do think they are vain. It’s a quiet form of dandyism, but think they enjoy the ornaments essential to their functioning – the lovely multicolored chains and hats and bits of metal that festoon from arm to arm.

Now, ulp, I have one inside my house. How do you say no in the middle of a birthday party when someone says We Have A Present for You, it’s on a truck, how about this corner? Well, you say yes! It’s the Autumnal blazing happiness yellow of sunflowers and pear apples and drowsy honeybees. It’s pettable, and clean, and it comes with its own little tag indicating that it is #4. Its presence in my house makes me realize the Heavy Metal Hydrant Suite can’t wait any longer to meet the world. [Read more…]

Save the Date for Colorbath! Iskra at Taste | SAM

July 9, 2018 by Iskra Leave a Comment

The Harbor Iskra at Taste Restuarant at SAM — “Harbor Morning,” mixed media archival pigment print, 36 x 36″ © Iskra Johnson

Summer, finally! I’ve been immersed for months in new ways of looking at color and light, and finally what I have been seeing in my minds’ eye has unfurled in front of me. What turns a mere boat into a “vessel” is the fleeting moment of refraction. In my spring wanderings through freezing shipyards that light was not always easy to find. Often I would return home from Salmon Bay and Harbor Island with hundreds of classic northwest gray-green photographs, all cast in the steely gaze of cloudcover. Occasionally a well-honed wind would scrape the sky, leaving blue shards on the water and astonishing bits of gold. One evening iridescent swallows flew through from the bridge. Two raptors shrieked courtship from the highest masts, offering what seemed like a lovers’ benediction.

The Golden Rope Photography by Iskra The Wrapped Ship photograph by Iskra Composition with Sail maritime photograph by Iskra

Journal Entry: The shipyard on Sunday. Men playing guitars on derelict balconies, men riding yellow bikes, men rising shirtless and surprised from the hulls of tugboats unshaven and lurching but still afloat. The wooden planks, the seams of trees that run out into the waves parallel, almost indistinguishable. Then the five alarm fire of a red buoy hanging off the Maudie Mae and its shadow and the starburst within the shadow.

Inspiration photos from Salmon Bay.

As a photo-based printmaker I start with the camera. The photograph is the diving platform. From that reality-based ledge I go into a world of improvisation, working with layers of paint to create a completely new world. Colorbath goes farther into abstraction and paint than I have gone before, and opens up exciting new directions for the future.

Please mark your calendar for Thursday August 9th and join me for a reception for Colorbath, from 6-7:30 at Taste Restaurant, Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave, Seattle, WA 98101. I will have nine new large works ranging in size from 30 x 30″ to 30 x 40″. They will be posted for preview on the SAM Gallery site and in my portfolios soon.

Postscript:

I was a lake swimmer for years. I fell in love with my first tugboat when I was 17 and stayed up 24 hours listening to Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert while looking at rust and tires on the Duwamish. Some of the people who actually spend their lives working on boats feel the same way. If you have an hour or two to get lost at sea visit these folks at Maritime Family. All I can say is WOW.