Mokuhanga workshop!

Towards the end of the third week of October, I took a two day mokuhanga printmaking workshop at the Clones Art Studios, located in the historic Old Post Office. The building is in "The Diamond" across from the town's central high cross. I had excitedly booked the course as soon as I saw it advertised last August. Kate MacDonagh is an expert in this Japanese woodblock printmaking technique and I have  admired her work since coming across it in zoom artist talks over lockdown last year (through both Graphic Studio Dublin and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Arts Office).

While Kate gave demonstrations throughout the two days, the first day was primarily concerned with carving our own blocks with our simplified images and with especial care to measuring and getting the registration marks correct.

 I only thought later that I should have taken a photo of the space as it was set up for the workshop before the work began but the studios provided a spacious work area and demonstration area, that allowed concentration and focus to permeate the atmosphere.

Kate had stressed the importance of simple images for carving and I thought my obsession with chimneys provided an ideal image with which to work.

The stress Kate had put on the importance of registration made huge sense when it was realised that the blocks we were carving would work in tandem with uncarved woodblocks that could provide a variety of backgrounds. 

We each prepared a number of pre-cut Japanese papers for printing on the second day and with these papers we could use a number of techniques to create gradated or solid backgrounds for our images. One of the beauties of mokuhanga printing is that it is environmentally sound, using watercolour and nori paste (made from rice flour and water) to create a water soluble ink that, in combination with the fibrous Japanese paper, is incredibly durable and robust.

The workshop was about experimentation with a technique that produces varied and rich results. At the end of the two days everyone involved chose one print only as a sample of our work. The workshop was fantastic and we were all so grateful to Kate for being so generous in sharing her time and expertise with us.

RHA Annual Exhibition - part 2 of 2

I gave a general overview of this year's RHA Annual Exhibition in my post here, but I also wanted to post a few pix of works that stood out for me among the plethora of excellent artworks.

Although the first gallery room seemed chock-a-block with work, the hanging seemed very thoughtful as works definitely were in some sort of conversation and subtle echoes of each other. One of my friends who was viewing the exhibition on a repeat basis noted that visitors spent more time in this first room, before they really realised how huge the exhibition actually was. I tried to hurry my pace. In one corner I noted a large drawing, a self-portrait, by Imogen Stewart, a grand dame of the Irish art world. She is a notable sculptor and, indeed, the drawing was very sculptural in form. One of her sculptures is in the foreground of this picture. Also in the corner was a drawing and some sculpture by Danny Osborne. I had some familiarity with his fascinating work in lava casting because he had been on an Umha Aois project with my husband a few years ago.

My foray to the RHA was brought about by the desire to see Judy Foley's new work in the flesh. Through the delicacy and clarity of her images of body implants, she subverts traditional icon painting techniques (egg tempera and gold leaf triptych) to boldly make statements of the fragility of humanity versus godliness. I have followed Foley's work for a number of years and have previously written about it for CIRCA online magazine here.

After being introduced to Myra Jagos work at the recent "Show and Tell" at Signal Arts Centre, I was looking forward to seeing her painting in the flesh too. I wrote about the Signal event in a previous blog, here.

In one of the large rooms upstairs, there was a whole wall full of small prints. It was here that the tiny self-portrait etching of Daniel Lipstein leapt off the wall to my eyes in recognition. I had met Lipstein a number of years ago when he was giving open printmaking workshops at Trinity Arts Workshop. Not only was this pre-pandemic, but it was pre-policy change - shortly after Lipstein demystified carborundum printing for me (I had never heard of this process till I came to Ireland!), TAW decided that their workshops would no longer be open (albeit paying) to anyone who was not affiliated in some way to Trinity College. Since I am not, I could no longer attend the workshops. Boo, hiss, on Trinity Art Workshop!

 

I noticed this larger woodblock print and recognised the work of Kate MacDonagh, who gave an artist talk via Zoom last year, hosted by Graphic Studio Dublin. I had also virtually attended MacDonagh's artist talk on the mokuhanga technique (Japanese traditional woodblock printing) of which she is a virtuoso, through the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown arts office.

Susan Early is also associated with Graphic Studio Dublin. She is the education outreach administrator there (from whom I get loads of e-information on artist talks and courses) and also a printmaker. I was unable to attend her recent Zoom artist talk (thank you GSD for holding these talks throughout the lockdowns and continuing them into the foreseeable future!) but look forward to seeing the recording when it is available. GSD has a YouTube page so previous artist talks can accessed here.

I also recognised the work of Stephen Lawlor from a GSD artist talk and likewise the work of

Ailbhe Barrett (though this print stood out anyway to me, for its ethereal atmosphere).

Speaking of ethereal atmosphere, I loved this intimate painting by Anne Magill.

I thought, when I first saw them on the wall, that this tiny work and a companion piece by the same artist, Bernadette Madden, were colourful, miniature paintings but then realised that with all the sold red dots beside them, they were in fact prints - silkscreen. Gorgeous! it is really inspiring to see so much fantastic work by fantastic artists - my blog is just touching the tip of the iceberg, and in any case a quick pic taken with a phone is nothing compared to the live experience of seeing the actual work. I have my gripes against the RHA, but I can't fault the work being shown there.