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Showing posts from January, 2011

International Print Center NY: For the love of pen, paper and pulp

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Enrique Chagoya -  Return to Goya No 9  - is that Obama in a frock? Yes it is!  Chagoya's cheeky seal I recently discovered the wonderful International Print Center NY , a shrine to all things pulped, pressed and printed - in ways that a camera or traditional brush and canvas are not. The center is non-profit and relies the support of annual auctions and some very generous artist benefactors.  For example, the above etching, an edition of 50, was donated by MOMA-lauded printmaking lecturer from San Francisco, Enrique Chagoya, featuring his signature wit and irreverence - in this case, Obama in a frock, and executed in the style of Goya.  The Denver Post featured this story of a woman who smashed her way into Chagoya's show in Loveland, denouncing what some locals felt were blasphemous images. Well, as they say, better to be talked about than not talked about ... My surge of interest in printmaking was inspired by a friend, Kate Holoka, a recent and promising

Matt Straub: I'm Hit, But I Think I Can Make It: Lyons Wier Gallery

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There Ain’t Time To Argue! Oil, spray paint, and enamel on canvas, 58 x 52 inches. This is my favorite. It's a huge work. RIGHT NOW, it couldn't be more politically incorrect for me to "like" this exhibition. Congresswomen Gabrielle Gifford lies breathing through a tube somewhere in Tucson, recovering from a point-blank gunshot wound to the head. Pro and anti-gun squabbles are loud and vocal. Psychoanalysis is the discipline of the day, as authorities try to work out how to spot nutjobs before they crack. So, it's with great trepidation that I dare even blog about this show, although the vivid poster-like images sitting in the large window of Lyon's Weir gallery caught my eye long before the tragic incident. Trouble Ahead Oil, spray paint, and enamel on canvas, 22 x 22 inches  I love the highly textured, thick blue thought bubble. Matt Straub hails from Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he "spent his early years hitchhiking and hopping freig