New prints reinvent old medium on giant scale in Portsmouth
If rare is the word when it comes to noteworthy exhibits of period prints, scarcer still are shows of contemporary printmaking.
Nearly two decades have passed since the last substantial example unfolded anywhere close to Hampton Roads — and for that you had to drive to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.
But in a year made remarkable by not just one, but two impressive displays of 17th-century prints at the Peninsula Fine Art Center in Newport News — including three dozen etchings by Rembrandt — fans of this seldom-seen medium are getting a great bonus.
Curated by Gayle Paul of the Portsmouth Art and Cultural Center, “In Print” features scores of works you may not associate with the mostly small, deliberately intimate prints of the past — and that’s because the regional and nationally known artists who made them used new tools and hugely expanded scale to reinvent them.
“This exhibit is about artists who create the image as an original print, then see it through the entire printmaking process,” Paul said.
“And they’re using advanced and improved printmaking technology to create works you couldn’t make just a few years ago.”
A year in the making, “In Print” explores works by numerous Hampton Roads and Virginia artists, as well as talents from Ohio, Tennessee and the West Coast.
Unexpected scale is a defining characteristic of the collection here, where your eyes may pop and your breath be taken away by the sheer size and ambition of such pieces as a 14-foot-tall installation by Washington artist Nicole Pietrantoni.
Cascading down from the wall just a foot shy of the gallery’s high ceilings, five hand-bound accordion-style books unfurl into the air and fall to the floor, their synchronized pages forming a huge vertical view of ocean swells rumbling in from a distant horizon toward the viewer.
Dark clouds trace ominous patterns in the sky overhead, while barely submerged rocks lurk just below the frothy surface.
Passages of words pour down the pages in fragments, riding the currents with the menacing conclusions of a climate change and water report.
“The scale is just spectacular,” Paul says, describing a work so large it nudges you back on you heels if you get too close.
“And it creates this giant image that’s not just seen but felt.”
That impact is made all the more striking by the much smaller, even intimate scale of “Precipitous” before it was unpacked.
“It arrived in an Office Depot box maybe 16-by-20-by-16 inches in size,” Paul said, “yet it expanded into this huge piece measuring 6 feet wide and 14 feet high.”
Even bigger and more muscular is “Black Ice,” a 20-foot-wide Arctic landscape engraved, painted and assembled by Alexandria artist Rosemary Feit Covey.
Though her “Gingko” and “Fish” images are substantially smaller, the same curious combination of elvish craftsmanship and robust size makes you stop to look — and if you do it closely you will find hundreds if not thousands of small wood engravings that have been pulled through a press, cut out and then collaged into complex and arresting images.
“Wood engraving is a very old process,” Paul said, “but this is an entirely new way to do it.”
Old Dominion University artist Domenica Webb takes a similar tack with her oversize cyanotype prints, using an early photographic medium and direct printing to make otherworldly images of veils, dresses and blouses once worn by Webb or various family members.
Burned into the blue paper with sunlight, some images are then embellished with pins, stitching and buttons, too, adding the presence of the artist’s hand to these ethereal surrogates of her childhood and family.
“They’re beautiful,” Paul says, “and very personal.”
“In Print”
Where: Portsmouth Art and Cultural Center, 1846 Courthouse, 400 High St., Portsmouth.
When: Through May 28.
Cost: $3 adults, $2 children ages 2-17.
Info: 757-393-8543 or portsmouthartcenter.com.
Click here to view these featured and available pieces by ROSEMARY FEIT COVEY. Please contact Morton Fine Art for pricing and details.
Morton Fine Art: curator's notes 
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