Pascale Hemery

Intérieur bois I

2005

Xisco Mensua (Spain, 1960) Untitled from Portfolio "Junio - Julio", 1995 engraving on paper 12.6 x 9.5 in. (32 x 24 cm.) Edition of 6 Frame 16x20 in. ID: MEN1253-003 Hand-signed by a...

"Sew What" is a color mezzotint with burin engraving created in an edition of 35. This impression is #6. I love sumptuously designed textiles in both real life and art. Patterns metamorphosing over fabric folds appeal to my interest in modulating rhythmic forms, particularly the swells and swirls of calligraphic stripes. I’m also fascinated by articulated wooden hand models, which appear in many of my paintings. Combining these passions with sewing paraphernalia from my seamstress days provided inspiration for my color mezzotint engraving "Sew What". Carol Wax originally trained to be a classical musician at the Manhattan School of Music but fell in love with printmaking. Soon after she began engraving mezzotints she was asked by the renowned print dealer...

Viewers are always curious about this image. I count 20 people seated -- all men. Why? Three of the men are looking over their shoulders toward the back. Are they impatient to see late arrivers? The seating seems to be pew like. Pasternak, like most artists, wants the viewer to bring their own interpretation to the image and is most circumspect to give an explanation. A church, a union hall, a political meeting -- which is it? The mood seems to be one of anxiety rather than celebration. The artist did answer why all men. He says that "he likes to create the tension of the image on the page. Putting women and men together...

Contemporary artist Peter Milton created this etching and engraving entitled "Interiors VI: Soundings" in 1989. The printed image size is 29 7/8 x 23 13/16 and paper size is 36 x 29 inches. This impression is signed, dated, and titled in pencil and inscribed “93/175” – the 93 impression of 175. “I do love to draw. I feel that I am being granted membership in the Brotherhood of Merlin, conjuring forth some apparition. As a drawing develops, I sense a vague presence coming more and more into focus, something in a white fog emerging and becoming increasingly palpable.” – P. Milton, “The primacy of touch. The Drawings of Peter Milton” “Working in layers, Milton begins with drawings based on people and places, with nods to Western art history and culture. He is a master of the appropriated image, a term that may conjure Andy Warhol and his Pop Art comrades. But Milton steps further back in history, avoiding the Pop sense of cool advertising and popular culture references. Instead, a broader cultural past is tapped through historical photographs of key players, architecture, and locales, which he reinvents by hand. He adds content drawn from his life as an avid reader – always with multiple possible interpretations – thus incorporating deeper meaning in his cinematic worlds. Elements of Greek mythology, classical music, art history, and history coalesce in his images, which embrace the messiness, sorrow, and elation that is life. One is hard-pressed to imagine a more erudite, skilled, passionate, and cheeky soul." – T. L. Johnson and A. Shafer Peter Milton was born in Pennsylvania in 1930. He studied for two years at the Virginia Military Institute...