Canadian artist Mark Kellett’s "Composition in “M” IV, a serigraph,

is on exhibit at Anna Leonowens Gallery in the

1st International Printmaking Biennial,

organized by the Maritime and Atlantic Printmaking Society.

(Eric Wynne / Staff)

THE PAPER TRAIL

The 1st International Printmaking

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA | Wednesday September 20,

2006

Nova Scotia printmaker Peter MacWhirter is coordinator of the

1st International Printmaking Biennial, an internationally

touring exhibit of work by 55 artists now at the

Anna Leonowens Gallery, 1891 Granville St., Halifax

where there is also an Atlantic Canadian exhibit of students’ prints.

(Eric Wynne / Staff)

International printmakers make imprint in Halifax

Printmaking

By ELISSA BARNARD Arts Reporter

Printmakers are in a fight for their livelihood and Peter MacWhirter

hopes the 1st International Printmaking Biennial will makes a

difference.

Printmaking is considered a "poor cousin" to painting and

sculpture, says MacWhirter, a printmaker and coordinator of this

internationally-touring exhibit, organized by the Maritime and

Atlantic Printmaking Society (MAAPS).

"Printmaking is generally seen as a support study. A lot of

printmaking departments (at art colleges) are being cut."

The 1st International Printmaking Biennial, of prints by 55 artists

in Canada, China, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom and the

United States, is at NSCAD University’s Anna Leonowens Art

Gallery, 1891 Granville St., to Saturday, and then goes on tour to

Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Kyoto, Seoul and Beijing.

Two years from now MAPPS wants to organize an international

show to go from Atlantic Canada to Boston, Philadelphia and then

the United Kingdom.

"The first point is creating an international cultural event for the

city, making it a more interesting place to live, and the second

point is promoting regional cultural producers," says MacWhirter.

When he went looking for government support, "on both accounts

I ran up against ambivalence."

"This is not Diana Krall in a nice dress playing a piano. It’s not

that sexy."

Printmaking may not be sexy but it is a hotbed of controversy on

two fronts. When Canadian wildlife artist Robert Bateman decided

in 1977 to enter the reproduction market and signed photomechanically

reproductions of his paintings, he was criticized for

selling over-priced posters and damaging the art market for handmade,

signed, limited edition prints. The public got confused, says

MacWhirter, and considered all prints suspect.

"It undermined the whole industry and affected the value of

original prints. It has affected printmakers’ lives. Having a show

like this is a way of jumpstarting it in a small way."

With the advent of computer technology, controversy also reigns

about digitally-produced prints versus hand-made etchings.

Biennial 2006, organized by Peter

MacWhirter and the Maritime and

Atlantic Printmaking Society

(MAAPS), shines a light on the

world of hand-made prints

whether they are woodcuts,

lithographs, mezzotints or digital.

"I’m kind of right in the middle of that," says the artist, who

reveled in PhotoShop when he helped design this exhibit’s DVD

cover. "I like the physical thing of running something through a

press." But, "I think computers are wonderful."

With digital prints, "you can change the colour and the size and

make a million different versions. People who are opposed are

people who don’t like the grey areas of how you can manipulate

and change things." Issues of "value and validity" are "very much

apart of it."

There is one entirely digital image in the MAPPS show, Canadian

artist Paul Dempsey’s Impressions and Deceit, a film noir

detective image of seemingly different textures and raised

surfaces. "He’s done it not in a compromising or cheap way. He’s

mimicking an etching embossment. A lot of times people will do

digital but make it look like a screen print. You see how that looks

like it’s sticking out, it’s a relief embossment method but it’s fake,

it’s simulated."

MacWhirter, who coordinated the show with Hilda Woolnough, of

Breadalbane, P.E.I., purposely exhibited the work unframed so

viewers can see the frayed edges of the paper and realize the

works are printed on paper.

The only theme is diversity. "The idea was to be inclusive and not

make it strictly a contemporary interpretative show, that everyone

saw a piece that was familiar."

Images range from traditional landscape like Newfoundland

printmaker Scott Goudie’s mezzotint Crow Head to Inuit to whiteon-

white abstract to Ontario artist Mark Kellett’s serigraph like a

stained glass window of intense blue and rust colours and pictures

with a social content. Japan master printer Seiko Kawachi’s

woodblock, Open the Will (II) recalls the bird flue scare with

chickens flying out and escaping a convenience store.

Artists exhibiting include British artist Anne Desmet, editor of

Printmaking Today, Scottish artist Stuart Duffin, a staff member

at the Glasgow Print Studio since 1984, Nova Scotia’s Anna

Syperek, a major player in the Society of Antigonish Printmakers,

popular Dorset artist Germaine Arnaktauyok, who designed the

1999 $2 Canadian coin, American artist Stephanie Smith, who is

founding president of the Atlantic Printmakers Studio, and Seung

Yeon Kim, who resurrected the Seoul print biennial. The lovely

poster image of a bottle on the beach is by Nova Scotia

Community college graduate Anna Stowe.

Christine Lalonde, assistant curator, Canadian prints and

drawings, National Gallery of Canada, brought into the project by

David Franklin, director of the National Gallery of Canada, and Ed

Porter, retired professor of printmaking from NSCAD University,

selected prints from the MAAPS membership, and Lalonde and

MacWhirter chose the prints from across Canada. Five printmakers

from China, Japan, Korea, London and Georgia, U.S.A., each

chose six prints from their communities.

MacWhirter anticipates the show growing in the direction of the

huge Boston Printmakers North American biennial where fees from

entrants help cover costs. As a dedicated printmaker, he has no

plans to give up. "We’re in a fight and it’ll be ongoing."

(ebarnard@herald.ca)

•The biennial is in gallery 2 and 3

of the Anna Leonowens Gallery,

NSCAD

University, 1891 Granville St.,

through Saturday. Gallery hours

are 11 a.m. to

5 p.m., Tuesday to Friday, noon

to 4 p.m., Saturday.

THE CHRONICLE HERALD

© 2006 The Halifax Herald Limited