Kauai artist Sally French’s monotype print “Delete” shows a dark figure with swollen eyes and fuzzy headphones wielding a smartphone in two hands, both thumbs busy texting, sending out unintelligible words.
French said the image expands upon her series featuring the same figure in postures dictated by everyday patterns in life. The words, she said, are “flying into the atmosphere, without any meaningful relationship to real time.”
HONOLULU PRINTMAKERS’ 89th ANNUAL EXHIBITION
>> What: Juried selection of prints from artists around Hawaii in traditional printmaking media as well as contemporary forms and hybrids
>> Where: Honolulu Museum of Art School, 1111 Victoria St.
>> When: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. today through Wednesday
>> Info: honoluluprintmakers.org
“Delete” was selected as the 2017 gift print for the Honolulu Printmakers’ 89th annual exhibition, showing through Wednesday at the Honolulu Museum of Art School. Since 1933, Honolulu Printmakers has commissioned a local printmaker to produce a limited-edition print for sale to raise funds for its activities.
“I’ve been working with this theme for a while,” said French. “That posture of being bent over a cellphone has become pervasive in our culture.”
For the first time, the exhibition was opened to prints made entirely with digital tools, a notion the organization has been debating for 15 years. A broad body of work by new and well-established Hawaii artists is on view. The works include traditional lithographs, digital prints and contemporary hybrids that combine media. They range from deeply personal and nostalgic to political and playful.
French, who runs the Double Dog Dare Studio on Kauai, is currently focusing on monotype prints, a process in which prints are made off glass or metal plates painted with an image. For “Delete” she worked with master printer Paul Mullowney in San Francisco over a four-day period. She had to repaint the plates after every six to eight prints, so there are variations within the 75 made available for sale.
The juror for this year’s exhibition was Amze Emmons, an associate professor at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia and co-founder of printeresting.org, an influential printmaking blog.