Relief Prints from the Community Arts Center (Part 1 of 2)

 For another couple weeks the Community Arts Center in Wallingford is exhibiting a huge group show of work by members and faculty. I taught a summer camp there this summer and was very interested in the handful of relief prints by The Printmakers of The CAC in the Stairwell Gallery.

The first two shown here are Rabbit 1(soft block print) and Squirrel 1 (woodcut), both by Jean K. Kristie.

I wouldn't have thought these were by the same artist, despite the general similarities of featuring the whole animal in profile on a dark ground and light backdrop.  The rabbit is more spontaneously rendered, He seems a little nervous and crouched, poised to escape. The squirrel on the other hand is more neat and controlled, just waiting to be stamped onto a greeting card. This rather makes sense to me given that in my experience, wild squirrels tend to be much more comfortable with human presence than are wild rabbits.










The third print featured here is Snow Robbins, a block print by Beth Camagna. This was actually my favorite of the three, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get a good close-up photograph because the glass caught too much glare. This reminded me a bit of Felix Vollotton's prints that often feature an array of patterns that push the eye all around the composition, and then into little pools of both solid black and solid white for the patterns to flow into and the eye to rest.

Click here to read Part 2.