Bedrock Welcomes the iconic Jaune Quick-To-See-Smith in the creation of an ambitious seven foot vertical diptych lithograph. Created in the Bedrock Studio and in progress, this project proves to evolve one of Jaune’s tricker figures to lifelike presence and present political relevance.
A Native American of French-Cree, Shoshone, and Salish blood, New Mexican artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith creates paintings and drawings that reflect her upbringing in a household where art and horses were equally important. In the initial stages of her career, Smith’s painted landscapes inevitably contained a “portrait” of her horse Cheyenne shown with tepees, tools, pottery, and other Indian artifacts. Eventually Smith began to incorporate collage elements into her paintings, adding bits of calico and muslin fabric and wire mesh over which she lavished paint. The result was surfaces that acquired a texture and topography reminiscent of the landscapes she was depicting. Smith is part of the new generation of Native American artists who are helping to redefine their culture’s relationship to contemporary American life and its problematic past. She lives and works in Albuquerque, in close proximity to the land that inspires much of her art.
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…”
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.
Larassa Kabel
Kabel’s work gravitates towards uncomfortable subjects, using art as a tool for clarity by asking questions that may have many answers but only one truth. How do we encounter suffering with compassion, propagate grace, open ourselves to a relationship with death, and recognize the nature of power? Each inquiry rings like a bell that was a cup until it was struck. Kabel’s work reminds us that it is easy to be unconscious through most of our lives but that unconsciousness leaves us unprepared for the inevitable times when our better natures must be called upon.
Zigmunds Priede
A native Latvian, after graduating from the University of California, Berkley, Zigmunds was hired on as a master printer for Universal Limited Art Editions, where he collaborated and printed for the likes of Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, and Barnett Newman. After his time at ULAE, Zig went on to teach for 12 years at the University of Minnesota, then later moved to Kansas where he taught painting and drawing at Johnson County Community College. Zigmunds is now retired, spending his time in the studio.
Laura Berman
Laura’s work has been featured in The Book of Probes by David Carson / Marshall McLuhan, Printmaking at the Edge by Richard Noyce, Contemporary American Printmakers by Rooney, Standish, and A Survey of Contemporary Printmaking, by Ehlers, Ehlbeck and Muise. Laura Berman’s work is represented by Weinberger Fine Art (Kansas City, MO), Long View Gallery (Washington, D.C.) and Uprise Art (New York City). She publishes her work through Bedrock Art […]
Untitled, 2016
I find a calm beauty in subtlety, a soft grace, like a breath of moist forest air. The subtle whites of this piece shift when seen from different angles as trees fall back and move forward, offering new ways of seeing. It reminds me that life is full of beautiful perspectives if we slow down, look close, and allow ourselves to see more than we do at first glance, honoring the subtle beauty all around us.
Suspension 1 and 2, Laura Berman
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…
Boy with Cordless Headphones
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.
Rashawn Griffin
Two Things Happening at the Same Time, 2016 | Lithograph with hand stitching, Chine-Collé, thread embossment, and plastic eyes Two Things Happening at the Same Time, is a continuation of Rashawn Griffin’s investigation into materiality, drawing, and identity. Starting by “re-imagining” the Griffin family tartan, in new and saturated colors, the image was created in […]
Andrzej Zielinski
TWO SCANNER MONOTYPES, 2018 | Monotypes with Chine Collé, lithographic elements and a glaze overprinting Artist’s Statement / Read about the making of the work Ouroboros Shredder, 2017 | Slit and Folded lithograph with registration pins Ouroboros Shredder, speaking to the Greek mythological concept of the cyclical nature of life and death, depicts the […]
Mike Lyon
After many hears of practicing eye-hand coordination required to draw and paint visually (paint what you see), Kansas City artist, Mike Lyon, “became intensely curious about how image was communicated through the marks I made. I began employing automated procedures and, eventually, electromechanical tools, many of my own design and construction. I continue to be fascinated by marks and mark-making, pattern, aesthetics, the past, and the location of meaning. My recent work is typically produced using traditional tools manipulated by non-traditional means.”
Megan Lou Gallant
Kansas City Artist Megan Gallant is a strong advocate for the power of creative practices to transform individuals and community. She is passionate about connection, and using creativity to manifest meaningful experience and expression. Her work explores the connection we have with our selves, with our natural world, and with each other, both symbolically through object making, and experientially through community engagement.