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You are here: Home / Digital Collage / Recent Monoprints and an Upcoming Show

Recent Monoprints and an Upcoming Show

June 25, 2021 by Iskra Leave a Comment

 

Color Theory Painting Studies Iskra
Color Studies, Studio Work

As we emerge from the pandemic into summer I have good news to report: Seattle Art Museum and SAM Gallery are close to fully reopening! I will be part of a group show in late summer with two other printmakers, Tallmadge Doyle and Jueun Shin. In conjunction with SAM’s Monet exhibit the theme will be water, which I am guessing you may welcome after what could be some very hot months ahead. As post-pandemic plans finalize it is best before visiting to call the gallery and shop (206.654.3120) to learn the latest updates on procedures. At this point access is available Wednesday-Sunday 10-5 without a museum ticket, although the museum website does not yet reflect this.

Water is also the theme of a piece selected for the exhibit Art in the Time of Corona, which features my piece “Ledger” on Artsy.  The goal of this innovative project is to record and exhibit defining artwork created during civil uncertainty. The hope is to unite viewers and help them find the sanctity, comfort and inspiration needed to heal a world in turmoil.

Over the past six months I have been sorting ideas and directions and keeping my studio practice focused on process. Printmaking has been a throughline of all my work for decades, and as part of my year of media exploration I decided to take one more look at “old fashioned” printing with a press, using water-based Akua inks. With help from an associate in Seattle Print Arts I set up my Baby Richeson press, which has been sitting neglected in a dark corner for nearly 20 years. It was mesmerizing to combine the folded paper collage I started doing earlier this year with the press, and I often found myself printing until 1 or 2 in the morning, experimenting with drypoint, monoprint and various forms of chine collé. Very few of these pieces will ever see a public wall, but the interplay between developing ideas in drawing and watercolor and then moving to a the press will be useful for years to come.

Wave Patterns Monoprint by Iskra
Wave Patterns: a monoprint created with Golden Paints open acrylic. Open acrylic is completely amazing. As I struggled with the Akua inks and their honey-based chemistry, which seems to not-dry, like – ever?, I turned to paint instead. I love the fluidity of this modern medium, and its sensitive mark-making possibilities.

Flight Patterns Monoprint by Iskra
Flight Patterns, multiple pass monoprint

Sensei, Akua ink monoprint on silkscreen paper.
The Infanta Iskra Monoprint
The Infanta, folded rice paper chine collé and various inks

During this time I also kept up my documentation of construction sites, of which, even in pandemic, there continue to be no shortage. Here is a drawing of the Safeway project, a pretty breathtaking take-down of a high-functioning grocery store, less than 25 years old, that anchored the Greenwood neighborhood for years. The plan, of course is to replace it with a luxury apartment complex. The working title of this new development is The Hemlock, no irony intended. Given that Greenwood is built on mud and duck marshes and every expansion of construction drains the water table, creating sinking homes and traffic circles that tilt three ways, this should get interesting.

Rebar Study, pencil on paper, the Safeway Project

The outright joy and absorption I experienced with printmaking brought me back full-circle to drawing and painting, fully engaged with hands and materials in real time. I continue to do my mixed media photographic prints (I just finished a commission for a residential project with the theme of Wabi Sabi (!) but I think most of my travels in the near future will be into paint, and the enduring practice of drawing as a part of that process.

Industrial landscape remains an obsession, regardless of medium. During pandemic I did not feel safe wandering the desolate zones of abandoned offramps and vacant lots I adore, but recently I have found a companion in crime. What better way to spend the Golden Hour than in the high desert of Harbor Island, crawling on the roof of a truck to photograph Ashgrove Cement? I have many promising photographs from our photo shoots, as well as a lifetime of inspiration for painting and prints. This piece, The Golden Hour, is a mixed media print combining painting and photography. On Memorial Day Weekend we had the entire island to ourselves, and as I peered through layers of chain link I was transfixed by the flag hanging above the river, unfurling like an anthem both to patriotism and a kind of feminine anarchy. The wind! the light! the air… so warm, so inviting and so completely unassociated with Nation State. ⁣Patriotism, perhaps, could be redefined.
⁣

The Golden Hour American Flag Landscape by Iskra
The Golden Hour, Duwamish Landscape, limited edition archival pigment print. © Iskra Johnson (Click to see in my shop, in two sizes.)

As we head into a weekend of ferocious heat I will leave you with my most recent work, a pencil drawing of the marine structures, called “dolphins,” which guide the ferry boats to shore. Stay cool, and if you can’t be in the water, hold it in your mind’s eye.

Dolphin Marine Structure Drawing by Iskra
Marine Structure, pencil on paper © Iskra Johnson

 

Filed Under: Digital Collage, Drawing, Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Painting Tagged With: American Flag in art, Duwamish landscape, harbor island, industrial art, Iskra printmaking, Iskra shows, monoprints, SAM Gallery reopens, the golden hour

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I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in wh I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in which I let the story of place, museums, witness and culture unfold as it wishes. It’s an old-style post before I had “newsletter consciousness.” (Sigh….when you send out a post with one image and a show announcement and maybe five more words and someone writes, “perfect length to view on my phone” you may be tempted to perform more of the same and forget the original muse, born long before success was judged by how well thoughts fit within 2x5” square inches. A few excerpts here and first link in bio to read the entirety. Witness and elegy is where I seem to live. Painting is acrylic ink on panel, a piece I have yet to resolve but like to see into for the next step.
If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s still yours! Yesterday I started early and went to an island in the middle of the blue sea to be in beauty and celebrate life. As we walked the beach we met a young boy also born on 9.11. His parents had brought him to Vashon for the same reason, and he had found a perfect moon shell for his own birthday present sent from the sea. It was such a lovely moment, to remember the world is young no matter how old we are.
Taking the last golden days of summer for study. T Taking the last golden days of summer for study. The Volunteer Park museum has an exhibit showing the influence of the Edo arts in Japan on Toulouse-Lautrec and I went to see it last weekend. As you can see from these images, I seem to have no interest in Lautrec— True! But these details of woodcuts and paintings on silk fill me with a quiet rapture.
Walking Meditation Walking Meditation
RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid
Sunday Morning Meditation: River and woods, stone Sunday Morning Meditation: River and woods, stone and light.

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