Printmakers perform 'Under Pressure’

28 Sep, 2022

Four Mangawhai artists have joined forces to demonstrate the versatility of the printmaking art form.

Experienced printmakers Wendy Clifford, Nicola Everett, Rosina Kamphuis and Aaron McConchie each push the boundaries and use printmaking to convey different messages, in this fifth annual exhibition celebrating printmaking.

“We have each worked on our individual themes to show fresh inspirations and new methods,” says Wendy Clifford. “For this exhibition I have chosen to do lino cuts and monotypes with a different approach from my usual work in traditional methods.”

Nicola Everett’s work explores the essence of printmaking, using multiples of one image (an edition), with a nod to its historical beginnings, as a way of reproducing an image or idea cheaply. The work can be viewed as an installation even though individual prints will be for sale.

“I want the audience to question, here using the eye, one of the artist’s many tools,” challenges Nicola. She has used lino print, lino etching and collagraphic print.

Rosina Kamphuis also has a question for viewers: “What can be accepted as a ‘print’ today?” asks Rosina. “These works have simply evolved out of my play with combinations of monotype techniques and drawing on semi-transparent polypropylene paper using oil-based printing inks. It has been an intriguing journey and remains exciting as I continue to take this combination of techniques further.

“My play with the moods of New Zealand’s endless landscapes and water continues to be an expressive tool in most of my works. This time, I have added the flight of the kereru (New Zealand wood pigeon) as an inspiration point. Kereru have always fascinated me. Their heaviness, the whoosh-whoosh of their wings as they navigate the bush, the bronze, greens and glinting reds and pinks of their plumage, and their very nature embody a natural part of who we are.”

Not willing to accept the status quo with genres and media, Aaron McConchie constantly pushes boundaries with materials and the viewer, often inviting the viewer to participate in his works either physically or as the subject.

For Under Pressure Aaron has created small islands of prints in the gallery space, offering an alternative way of viewing these small-scale prints. The works are

small, numerous and purposely low priced with a unique reverse numbered edition that prompts the viewer to take the print that is on top of the stack.

“The early adopter purchasing at the beginning of the show receives a higher edition number than those that chance their arm and wait to pick up a lower edition, risking missing out entirely – thus questioning the convention that a lower edition is more valuable, even though that number has been assigned by the artist,” explains Aaron.

“The pricing of each print is low. This is premeditated in an attempt to remove the stigma that art is precious. Art is to be enjoyed and by creating small works at low cost it introduces art as a commodity while also making it more accessible to the viewer.”

Aaron has used a vintage, table-top letter press machine to hand press each print, but he has also utilised 21st century, extremely accurate, CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machinery to create the plates, an entirely digital process from rough sketch to final files that are cut by the router.

Aaron will be demonstrating his vintage, table-top letter press in the Gallery on Saturday October 8.

n Under Pressure is open from 10am to 3pm each day until midday on Wednesday October 12 at Mangawhai Artists Gallery, 45 Moir St.

The Under Pressure group, from left, Aaron McConchie, Wendy Clifford, Rosina Kamphuis, and Nicola Everett. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Rosina Kamphuis says her work has evolved by experimenting with a number of print techniques. PHOTO/SUPPLIED