Sarah Serio's Triptych of Internal Strife Shows at the MAPC Show

Yes, the close is near for the Mid America Print Council Members' Fall 2011 Show, which has been a resounding success. The exhibition will close on January 6, but I wanted to get in a couple more pieces that have yet to be reviewed. Above we see Sarah Serio's dark-themed triptych, called 'The Subjection, The Despair, The Burden". Serio is a young artist, with an additional educational background in journalism and communication arts.

This piece speaks to the general internal struggles women find themselves involved in - vulnerability to advances(wanted or not), the despair that comes from a bad experience or loss of a love, and the burden that one carries around with them in the aftermath. Her images communicate well the ideas she wants to discuss - the first image with a revealed back turned and hunched inward show more the uncertainty of the experience about to unfold. The anguish expressed in the central image shows all too clearly the shame or sorrow that occurred in the first image, and the reclining figure's mournful repose unveils woman's emotional resignation as she figures out how to deal with it.

Utilizing her photographic experience, the faces of the woman have been deliberately obscured and cropped to make them an archetype - because Serio wants to project the series as every woman can, or has, experienced these feelings at some point in their lives. It's not a pleasant topic but unfortunately a frequent one. We'll see how Serio progresses with the series, and how or if she wants to speak further on topics associated with women.

Kathy Puzey's "Gust" at the MAPC Show

Kathy Puzey's print "Gust" grabs one's attention at the MAPC Show because it alludes to things that seem natural and familiar. An artist originally from Utah, Puzey's interests in nature are evident. Her earlier work in sculpture has evolved into printmaking and is still enamored of surface and natural forms. What captivates us is her deliberate break  from natural color as we try to figure out what is happening in this image.

Puzey's fascination with surface comes through in Gust, although we aren't exactly certain what is being 'gust' or 'blown about' in this composition. It could be a stick or tree branch in a winter storm. It could be a human leg walking about in the rain. What throws us is her color;  and that her use of  lines aren't taking us 'through' the picture from one place to another. It might be easy at first glance to dismiss this piece as decorative and more about design, but that would be missing the point of the image altogether.

There is a simultaneous static energy, and a sense of calm. The vertical column would suggest that there is a storm brewing, but it's not like any storm or waterspout I've ever seen. It has volume, and yet, it's locked in place, neither coming nor going. There are small 'energies' surrounding the column to suggest it wants to move outside of our view, but is maybe as mesmerized as we are to see it as it contemplates us.

In contrast, the background is more calm,  made up of similar colors and a neutralized field, except for a few small breaks in the grey negative space, which suggest an overcast sky. The only break in this neutralized energy are three strands of  alternating colored square beads which break the image at midsection. The device could be seen as decorative, but it is necessary to do so at that juncture.

Still there is something in this piece that reminds me of Susan Rothenberg's spartan compositions. It has an element of something East Asian in its emphasis. We see what is necessary to be seen, and no more. Only that which is the most beautiful branch, or the one thing the Asian artist deems most important, will be shown to the viewer. In that perspective, Puzey is well in tune.

Kristin Powers Nowlin's Prints Address Racial Identity and Confluence at the MAPC Show

Kristin Powers Nowlin's recent work brings together some often-discussed aspects of being an American - we are a 'melting pot' culture.  While this is certainly not a new topic to those of us residing in this country. It is  one of the things that make us unique in the world's migration history, but it also is a current social/political situation that affects millions of people world-wide, which may, in fact, forever exist.

Nowlin's "Chromosome Genetic Mapping" shows us  the profile of a small child, over-lapped by a global   migration map. The direction of the migrations suggest the genetic makeup of the child's heritage; as it's ancestor's have come to the United States, and indicating in which states they settled. The background is covered with a repetition of chromosome genes serving as a backdrop, and undertone for the image.

This image comes from Nowlin's Red Roots series, in which she says..."This body of work challenges and questions the way American culture defines and determines race. The specific images are symbols for the ways that either our popular culture or our scientific/academic culture have used specify the race of a given individual."http://www.kristinnowlin.com/


Of Nowlin's other series, she has been exploring various aspects of her own personal narrative along this subject, but I find the Red Root series has the more directed message of migration, genetic global evolution and story-telling. Her other series address the situation as well, but I am drawn to this image and the series it comes from. The blending of genetic streams is more direct and clear.


Nowlin's use of the relief method is also appropro to the antiquity and heritage of the printed image. Our earliest methods of printed imagery are in relief, and in that she respects the parameters of the medium. Her simple, clean lines, over-lapping translucent colors also correspond to the message of genetic layers which comprise all people living in this culture. Nowlin also says this series should examine the unique story of American race identity. It does that, and we will  see where this stream of social confluence will flow.

Janet Ballweg's Cups Runneth Over at the MAPC Show

Janet Ballweg is a consummate artist and masters her craft beautifully in the two prints that radiate a quiet warm and comfort. Her subject matter relies upon a familiar haunt - the kitchen. These prints create an aura of home and happiness, and imminent conversations with family, friends. "Round Again" shows the kettle sitting on a table with three cups, expectantly waiting to be served to as yet unseen guests. The repetition of shadows, reflection of the objects in the mirror and the circular patterns in the mirror's border  found again and again enhance the notion of one's cycles of thought, care for anticipated guests.

But some other visual aspects come into the picture as a secondary 'round' of information. The gathering of cups also seem to suggest something of memories and conversations past, while there is a comforting glow about Ballweg's work, there is also some essentially lost element - people. There are no persons present in the work, just empty environs, that seem as though someone is just outside the visual range that we see. It presents itself as a memory of people that had previously been there, or the anticipation of people to arrive to fill the room with actual conversation. The cups seem to represent missing souls, the kettle ready to heat up - all ready and lying in wait of some actual event.

"This Much I Remember" is a new departure from Ballweg's other kitchen and home interiors. Here, the barest hint of a cup, stove knobs and the kettle are visible through a decorative curtain screening or wall divider. In this piece the viewer is removed from actual engagement of the objects and relegated to another space, almost voyeuristic.Again the warm of the room and the patterned screen are inviting, but it is also a distanced memory. Ballweg's title would suggest that she is remembering an older time in her home; or maybe that of her mother's, or grandmother's.

For me, it conjures memories of being in my grandmother's house when I was a little girl. I would eagerly wait for her to bring out the special flower-painted china teacups and watch her make our afternoon tea. We would sit together at the kitchen table and talk about 'very important things' that only grandmothers and granddaughters could discuss. In all, Ballweg continues to fascinate us with these interiors of her memories, and helps up to conjure up our own.

John Gall's "Happy Wanderer" enlivens the MAPC Fall 2011 Members' Show

This precariously playful piece by John D. Gall shows its main character front and center - a boy blowing on his makeshift horn - looking  like a  a Little Rascals' version of the Pied Piper as he glances back for his followers. His environment is full of curiosities and dangers. On the left of the image there is a man marching off a cliff on the hill behind him, a rattlesnake seemingly ready to strike just at the boy's feet, a vulture hovering in the tree above his head, a rope wrapped around a forlorn chair with a sharp-tipped anchor sitting on the seat, and a bulls-eye perched high up on the tree above him, with a few meager attempts to hit the target.

Yet, the boy's preoccupation with unseen followers behind him distracts his attention from the warning sign telling him not to pass the crumbling footbridge imminently in front of him, otherwise he will surely fall to his death. The boy's wandering nature makes him oblivious to the rope from the chair that  has ensnared his leg, which we could hope would save him, except we see the anchor is attached to nothing which would save him.

On the other side of the footbridge, a sign saying "Keep Out" warns him yet again that there is danger awaiting  if he should cross the bridge as is evidenced by the weighty beehive swarming with angry bees waiting to drop on his head. The tower in the distance is abandoned and empty of life, yet a man in the distance seems to be pulling it to the precipice with a rope. The hot air balloons carrying more horns, like the one the boy is playing, suggest more forms of entertainment await him if he can cross to the other side.

All of this imagery, symbolism, and the cartoonesque drawing style which Gall employs stems from an earlier era where the symbolism associated with work and play, productivity and folly, harken back to the artists of the 1400-500s in Northern Europe; namely Pieter Breughel the Elder, Martin Schongauer, Jan Breughel II and Hieronymous Bosch. Gall's "Happy Wanderer" aligns itself with the moralistic messages of Breughel's  prints and paintings. His imagery doesn't have the playfully fantastical elements of Bosch or Schongauer, but the overall tone of the piece says 'watch out', 'look where you're going', 'don't be foolish!' which is very much in tune with Breughel the Elder's oeuvre. In fact, the tower in the background is eerily similar to Jan Breughel II's "A Coastal landscape w/ Fishermen with Their catch by a Ruined Tower" http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f0/Brueghel_-_Coastal_Landscape.jpg

We watch anxiously the piper's demise and want to reach out to stop his happy, blissful wandering, but alas we are only the spectator and can only learn from his misfortune.

John D. Gall's "Happy Wanderer" enlivens the Mid America Print Council show at Benedictine University and makes one crave more of his thought-provoking work.. Thru January 6, 2012. For more information, contact tparker@ben.edu To find out more information about the Mid America Print Council check out their website at http://www.midamericaprintcouncil.org/