(To be released May 21st, 2019.)
Bedrock welcomes Amy Feldman in the creation of a portfolio of seven lithographs titled “Loose Truths.” From neutral grounds to fluid and punchy figures, Feldman’s bare bones approach presents a powerful conversation of form and color. In her first lithographic series, the artist delivers her signature gray-on-gray abstract sign system with remarkable advance. Typical of Feldman’s hand, each resulting lithograph comes alive with personality, humor, presence, and stark elegance.
Chain Reaction Series, 2018
The “Chain Reaction” Series, Wendell Gladstone’s first project with Bedrock, is a variable edition of nine embossments treated with custom-colored, pearlescent powder. A gorgeous dance of image, color, ingenuity, and hard work, “Chain Reaction” evokes feminine strength and liberty from the central figure’s personal prison. Though Gladstone’s image is referential to his canvases, the embossed treatment he created in collaboration with master printer Aaron Shipps results in a series of distinct, sumptuously rendered prints: a triumphant contribution to Gladstone’s body of work.
Scanner Monotypes, 2018
“Exploring technologies we as humans use to communicate, scanners in particular have a symbolic parallel with the print mediums, as both use surfaces to transmit and transfer data. This being the case, both monotypes were initiated using Bedrock’s lithographic press to drag, press, and pull printing ink across the paper without the use of stone or lithographic plate. This technique, used in the creation of the background of each piece, brings to life a luminous backdrop which is rich, dimensional, and very tactile, each one to be anchored by the geometrical body of the scanner itself. The bodies of each scanners were printed with the more exacting transfer of ink to paper from a lithographic plate overprinted several times, building up increasingly thick layers of ink…”
Djamila, 2018
“Djamila,” Asad Faulwell’s first lithograph, depicts Djamila Bouhired, one of the female combatants who took part in The Battle of Algiers. Djamila, like her comrades, carried out attacks against the colonial French population in Algiers. This piece attempts to show how these women were both aggressors and victims, victimized both by their French adversaries and ostracized by Algerian society. The image was rendered using traditional lithographic techniques taken to an extreme fruition, afterwards finished with hand applied embellishments.
The Magical City Series
The Magical City series, a vibrant array of woodcuts printed on wood veneer, is based on recurring dreams that arrive in the mind of Zigmunds Priede. Each magical city is a composite of many different locations in the world, arriving just at the distance of the artist’s imagination, in between his native Latvia and the United States. As is the case for many who find themselves living abroad from their native lands, home is no longer the place that has been left behind, nor is it the place one now lives. For Zigmunds, this beautiful series of work is his attempt to deal with these notions of home, using cities as an emotive expression, rendered in many different color relationships.
Seven Monotypes
“Rashawn Griffin’s diverse practice is grounded in the poetic investigation of social space. Using found everyday materials, from bed sheets to decorative tassels; Griffin’s elegant compositions awaken displaced memories of a collective experience, taking us on a journey that collapses time and space”
— Amy Smith-Stewart
Seven Shredder Monotypes
Artist’s Statement: This grouping of seven shredder monotypes was made in context of an analogous relationship between the mechanics of a paper shredder, and that of a lithographic press. The results are surprisingly rich, enabling random data to be distorted in the creation of these new works, and the concept they are founded on: Inserting […]
Ouroboros Shredder
In my experience, great creations speak for themselves, and speak also, to their predecessors. Such were my aspirations as Andrzej Zielinski and I began our dialog about what to do for his upcoming lithograph.
The evening Andrzej Zielinski and I met to discuss concepts for this print, the studio felt small, as if trying to contain the many ideas Andrzej brought to the table. Ideas were leveraged, but we narrowed them down to a folded print, structurally similar to a few steel sculptures Andrzej was working on at the time.
The concept was electrifying and frightening, and a bit abstract, in that Andrzej’s concept differed from any other folded print I’d seen or read about. Which is something that will clarify itself as you read on…
Two Things Happening At The Same Time
During the first visit I took to Rashawn Griffin’s studio, as we stood in front of a wall covered in his work, he gave me this warning: “What I do looks like it was done quickly, but I labor over these. Most pieces take a long time to finish.”
It’s true. Rashawn’s art does have a fluid, easy going nature to it. Nowhere does this become more apparent than in Two Things Happening At The Same Time, Griffin’s first lithograph, where an unexpected world of composition, interplay of shapes, textures, and color compositions comes alive.
Longevity
By Laura Berman
The story here is of a gentle sway, a sigh, and a settling into. The lines respond to each other one by one, building upwards and compacting downwards over time. This moment in time is not a crescendo, but rather, a much-needed pause afterwards. A vibrating harmony of everything at its brightest and best.