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Review: ''Conversations'' at West Side Arts; plus, Tayo Heuser

Museum And Gallery

Academic (im)prints

KATHRYN SODAITIS: System 13, monotype, 2003.

The Bowdoin Alumni Printmaking Exhibition at ICON Contemporary Art in Brunswick is the perfect primer for the array of talent emerging from the Bowdoin College campus. The liberal arts curriculum makes no claims to ape art school, but with the help of faculty like visiting assistant art professor (and curator of the exhibition) Anna Hepler, these young artists who have passed through the hallowed halls of the academic institution have a clear reverence for meaningful and skilled artistic work.

Mason Miller’s hypnotic intaglio reflects an organic sense of chaos. “Untitled (Failure to Consider All Sides of a War)” features clusters packed close together like cells seen under a microscope. The frequency of the objects increases, the cells converging and overlapping as they move to the center, darkening the overall composition. Monolithic from a distance and meditative up close, Miller’s piece is a mess, but a strangely beautiful and natural one.

Anna Shapell uses the intaglio process for a similarly dynamic effect. Her two untitled pieces of fibrous fiberglass lines bounce within the frame ad infinitum, revealing a total singular form is revealed from the many. There is a natural quality to the composition, reminiscent of telescope images of cosmic phenomena in which the energy flow seems to concurrently disappear into and emerge from the center.

The “Human Scale” triptych by Kerry O’Connor is simultaneously one of the most dismissible and finest pieces in the exhibition. Two images of sprawling rock formations (or are they waves out at sea?) are followed by a third image of a tiny figure planted on the ground and engulfed by a white void. The third piece is engaging and elegantly states what the artist attempts to convey with the triptych but within the single image. The imprint left by the monotype press leaves a satisfactorily dirty border supporting the perfect imperfections within the gulf of negative space. This third image is all that is needed to tell such a grand story.

Ben Butler’s printmaking technique of thick application of earth-tone inks makes his “Untitled (woodblock 2)” reach out to the viewer as mysteriously iconic and potently sculptural. Dramatic lines allude to a natural leaf pattern but are forcefully imposed by artistic will. The piece flashes at first with an almost shocking quality, but then yields for gentle inspection of optical juxtapositions.

The largest piece in the exhibition is Alex Krippner’s ceiling-to-floor “Untitled (Silhouette in Waning Sun).” The woodcut is printed on a delicate paper and hung in the manner of a tapestry. Krippner expounds on the qualities of the woodcut with layers of simplicity to create a visual depth. A treescape with sinewy, interlocking branches sits in front as a stark contrast with the white-out sky. Measured manipulation of wood grain and knots materializing through the ink become dancing modulations within the forest. As we move down the canopy, the artist subtly shows us where the forest ends and the rippling water begins to a peaceful effect.