First Thursday reception: December 3, 6-8pm

Mortensen. Autumn Sunset, 1979. Reduction woodcut. Edition of 130. 22 x 30 inches.

Gorden Mortensen Reduction Woodcuts, 1974-1983

Gordon Mortensen (b. 1938, American) is one of the best known reduction woodcut print artists working in the U.S today. He works from watercolor studies to understand the color dynamics needed for the woodcut. The artist uses up to sixty-four colors and takes as long as three months to create the woodblock image. Although the final outcome has a painterly feel, it is unmistakably a woodcut with rich layered colors and wood grain textures. His early images mostly represent the upper Midwest landscape, and areas around where he lived in North Dakota. His color preferences in these early works is more muted compared to the brighter colors he favors to present his current home in California.

• View previous work by Mortensen

Dijkstra. Looner Diep, 2009. Reduction woodcut. Edition of 34. 12-1/2 x 27-1/2 inches.

Siemen Dijkstra Recente Houtsneden (Recent Woodcuts)

Siemen Dijkstra’s (b. 1968, Dutch) recent large reduction woodcuts, on view at Davidson Galleries during the months of December and January, reveal the artist’s mastery of the process and his passion for the lowland vistas of his home province, Drenthe, in the Netherlands. It is a land of woods, fens and moors. He likens the cutting of the blocks and layered printings, to his experience of the landscape. Dijkstra sees a relationship between the low relief surfaces of the woodcut and the flat landscapes he lives with.

The reduction woodcut process uses the same block of wood over and over, unlike the traditional woodcut method that employs separate blocks for each color. The artist cuts and prints the woodblock in stages, printing a different color on the same sheet of paper after each cutting. As successive areas of the block are cut away (reduced, hence reduction woodcut), inked and printed, the image builds in subtlety and complexity. Dijkstra and Mortensen both make effective use of the process to express their respective landscapes. Through January 30, 2010.

Keinen. Chrysanthemum, Chestnut Mannikin. Color woodblock, 1891. Oban diptych, 12-1/2 x 8-3/4 inches each.

Imao Keinen Kacho Album: the Four Seasons

Kacho-ga, or “bird and flower pictures,” are among the most enduring and popular subjects of Japanese prints. Active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, print artist Imao Keinen’s most celebrated work was his four volume set Keinen Kacho Gafu (Bird and Flower Album by Keinen) published in 1891. Keinen Kacho Gafu is a collection of Japanese bird and plant portraits illustrating over 100 different birds in carefully selected, seasonal settings. Davidson Galleries is proud to present an exhibition of the entire series of Keinen’s Bird and Flower Album through December 24.

• View Kacho-Ga works

We are closed December 25 & 26 and January 1 & 2.
Open by appointment Dec 29 - 31.

The Golem project is a suite of twenty etchings by Matt Rebholz, inspired by the tale of the Frankenstein-esque figure from Jewish folklore. Perhaps the best known of the Jewish legends, the Golem is an automaton, usually made from mud or clay and created through an intense and systematic mystical process. In Hebrew, the word golem refers to something unformed and imperfect, and implies a body without a soul. The narrative arc of the prints is a loose re-imagining of the 1915 Gustav Meyrink novel Der Golem, in which the title character wanders the streets of a corrupt and ruined city, blissfully unaware that he is a malfunctioning meat robot and not truly a man.

The prints are organized in a theatrical fashion, the spaces constructed as though they were the sets of a stage play and the players carefully arranged within them. Often the environments become more important than the figures, sometimes to their ultimate exclusion. These elements conspire to form a series of intimate, allegorical vignettes pregnant with obscenity and metaphor. The grotesque tableaux of The Golem serve as a polluted and uneasy dreamscape, peopled by a cast of damaged characters eager to do each other harm. Within this environment, the Golem himself can be read as a metaphor for humanity adrift in an absurd and dystopian world. As The Golem project ran its course, it deviated significantly from Meyrink’s original narrative, becoming less and less concerned with the original storyline. As it metastasized and evolved thematically, the imagery became increasingly concerned with my own thoughts about contemporary society and the manifestations of consumption, ingestion and expulsion within it.

View the entire series and additional work by the artist.

First Thursday reception: November 5, 6-8pm

Robert E. Marx Recent Paintings

Abigail’s Reverie, 2009. Oil on linen. 42 x 34 inches.

Rochester artist Robert E. Marx’s recent paintings on linen are rich and varied. Small to medium in size, these thoughtful images address the “exclusivity of the institutions of church and state, abuse of both spouse and child, and our own and others’ personal fears and insecurities.” The distended and sometimes bound figures he portrays wear symbols of subjugation such as masks, chains, hats that cover ears and eyes, and clothing that restricts movement. Marx mourns the autonomy humans give up and sees many people as scared, willing pawns. Some of his figures gaze out with a hollowness, a vessel drained of heavy emotion. Others challenge the viewer with an intriguing ambiguity of intent.

Marx’s painting process is fluid; it involves a constant reworking of his subject and his surface, painting and completely repainting each successive layer. The result is a subtle but complex surface where line and color is animated by the barely-visible underpainting. Marx works with a paintbrush thick with oil but employs crisp lines. He often works into the wet paint by etching with metal stamps or drawing with a sharp point.

Marx’s long and illustrious career includes recognition as a master printmaker, an illustrator of more than a dozen books, a distinguished professor of art, and a Fullbright scholar. He has had over 40 solo exhibitions of his prints, sculptures, and paintings around the world. His work is included in the permanent collections of numerous public and private institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Corcoran Gallery, National Museum of American Art, Dallas Museum, Los Angeles County Museum, Philadelphia Museum, Whitney Museum, and the Seattle Art Museum.

View previous work by the artist.

Jonelle Johnson New Works

Finger Printed Circular, 2009. Intaglio. 12 x 24 inches.

Northwest print artist Jonelle Johnson’s new body of monotypes and intaglio prints continue the artist’s interest in pairing and grouping images in a way that reveals contrasting and harmonious relationships. Johnson does not attempt to deliver a literal, didactic message, but prefers to see her work as vehicles to transmit feelings and ideas. Recurring images, which are a part of the artist’s daily life, include boats, birds, and botanical shapes. Also included in this body of work are figurative images, a new area of interest for the artist.

Johnson uses intaglio and monotype printmaking methods because of the unexpected results that can occur. These “surprises” inspire the artist to explore new avenues and enhance the dialogue between the artist and the printed image. The unique intaglio process that Johnson has developed gives her the ability to improvise and adjust gestural elements when making the plates. With her monotype method the artist layers colors until the image finds resolution.

Jonelle Johnson is a native of Washington State. She received her MFA in Printmaking at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu HI. This is Johnson’s fifth exhibition at Davidson Galleries.

View previous work by the artist.

Catalog 74, featuring over 200 original antique, modern and contemporary works, is now available in both printed and PDF formats.

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Bernhard Epple was a German printmaker and painter who spent most of his career teaching art at various schools including the University of Heidelberg and and the Kurfürst-Friedrich Gymnasium in Heidelberg.  He is best known for his elaborate, ambitious etchings and engravings that incorporate elements of fantastic realism with geometric abstraction and an innovative, experimental approach to materials and ideas.

Visit the new Bernhard Epple artist page for more work.