06.99 Ross Bleckner

1318 Tenth Street Berkeley, California 94710 Tel 510 559 2088 Fax 510 559 2085 e-mail: [email protected] Arrangement , 1999 Spit bite aquatint etching Somerset soft white paper A N E W R E L E A S E F R O M P A U L S O N P R E S S Image size 30" x 22" Paper size 40" x 31" Edition of 50 Paulson Press in Berkeley, California is pleased to announce the release of a new group of intaglio editions by New York painter Ross Bleckner. These print editions will be available for release in June 1999. Arrangement(s), 1999 Spit bite aquatint etching Ross Bleckner traveled to the Paulson Press studio this spring to make his Somerset soft white paper first etching editions. During the project, he completed 10 color prints that Image size 30" x 22" explore his notions of artmaking through the intaglio process. Known for his Paper size 40" x 31" poetic abstractions and imagistic light effects, Bleckner brought to the creation Edition of 50 of these prints, his widely acknowledged and highly individual approach to the technical side of art making. Bleckner has long experimented and improvised with materials that allow him Recognition, 1999 to transform surface appearance, routinely using ground pigments rather than Spit bite aquatint etching prepared paints, and developing methods that make paint appear as physical Somerset soft white paper layers of skin. In his current body of work, he has used a mesmerizing new Image size 30" x 22" technique that involves quick bursts from an airbrush that inflect still-wet Paper size 40" x 31" surfaces by spreading the paint. He applied this same approach to the Edition of 50 etchings, developing a similar technique that uses an airbrush to blow away the dry aquatint powder or to apply an acid-resist directly to the copper plates. Recognition(s), 1999 A series of four prints -- Arrangement, Arrangement(s), Recognition and Spit bite aquatint etching Recognition(s) – best show this approach. These prints feature horizontal Somerset soft white paper stripes that resulted from Bleckner using the airbrush in grand sweeping Image size 30" x 22" gestures across the plates. These prints reference his "stripe" paintings in Paper size 40" x 31" which the repeated horizontal lines metamorphose into cages or gates. Light Edition of 50 pulsates behind the stripes, as if they are actually trapping the light from escaping. The electric combination of brilliant blue and yellow colors in the print series is further accentuated by Bleckner s use of spitbite, where he applied acid directly to the plates to create watery, wash-like effects. Bonds and Proteins, 1999 Spit bite aquatint etching Bleckner s ongoing obsession with light, both formal and symbolic, has Somerset soft white paper remained a constant in his painterly vocabulary. In Bonds and Proteins, which Image size 30" x 22" features a similar color palette to the Arrangement and Recognition prints, Paper size 40" x 31" glowing orbs of light seem to have broken free from the atmospheric Edition of 50 background of blurred stripes to float above the charged field of color. Throughout the prints, Bleckner cultivates light as an ambiguous yet symbolic source. In Dome, off-white circular lights are reflected in the sepia-toned Dome, 1999 interior of an architectural dome or basilica. The repeated, concentric rows of Color aquatint etching with scrape dots cascade down from the top of the page, suggesting a divine source of and burnish illumination. In Sky the pale yellow dots denote patterns of stars in the dark, Somerset soft white paper night sky, perhaps as constellations that illuminate a void. The dynamic Image size 30" x 22" interplay of space and perspective in these prints remains secondary to the Paper size 40" x 31" strength of the transcendental light source. Edition of 50 The print Antibody Diversity with its flickering dots of bright vermilion red Sky, 1999 against a deep maroon background, has a unique sense of space that Color aquatint etching with scrape oscillates between interior and exterior. It is unclear whether Bleckner is and burnish referencing the human body or describing in rich color yet another celestial Somerset soft white paper body. The reference to biology is more obvious in Selection, where hand-drawn Image size 30" x 22" circular lines define individual cells made up of layers of sepia and warm Paper size 40" x 31" tones of brown. This close-up view of a natural process is further accentuated Edition of 50 by dots of red. Multiple spheres populate the print Rearrangement whose varying densities of ultramarine create an overall amorphous effect. As in Selection, the multiple layers of color are printed over a collaged sheet of Antibody Diversity, 1999 Japanese Gampi paper that provides a subtle surface texture. Spitbite aquatint etching Somerset soft white paper Bleckner has also had an ongoing interest in the scientific study of natural Image size 30" x 22" phenomena. This notion became important in bodies of work that memorialized Paper size 40" x 31" those lost to the AIDS epidemic, and with which he has investigated the Edition of 50 political and cultural ramifications of the failure of science to manage the disease. His references to science, through the use of repeated cell-shapes and clustered molecules, are brought into a lush and organic unity with the notion that these cells are the most fundamental units of life, and the most Selection, 1999 relevant metaphor to describe our humanity. Spitbite aquatint etching with softground and chine collé Ross Bleckner was born in New York in 1949 and grew up on Long Island. Somerset soft white paper After attending the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, CA, he Image size 30" x 22" returned to New York and became one of the first artists to join the Mary Boone Paper size 40" x 31" Gallery, where he continues to exhibit today. Since that time, his work has Edition of 50 been exhibited in major group and solo exhibitions at museums throughout the world, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Rearrangement, 1999 Museum of American Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the Spitbite aquatint etching with Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Berkeley Art Museum. In softground and chine collé 1995, a mid-career retrospective was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Somerset soft white paper Museum in New York. Image size 30" x 22" Paper size 40" x 31" For more information about these prints, please contact Paulson Press at (510) Edition of 50 559-2088. Prices and availability subject to change without notice..

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