All too often, mark-making conjures up images created using paint, ink, charcoal or graphite. Gaspereau Valley-based printmaker Julie Rosvall challenges our mark-making perceptions with her exhibit
Contexture on display as part of the group show
in combination at
The Craig Gallery, tucked away on the Dartmouth waterfront at Alderney Landing.
In addition to being a seasoned printmaker, Rosvall is an accomplished textile artist. Her practice combines these two disciplines to produce subtle yet provocative work that challenge our artistic perceptions.
In collaboration with letterpress printmaker and designer Tina Arsenault of Arquoise Press, Rosvall's prints are impressions of textile relief prints. Arsenault's letterpress prints are of knitting charts and pattern text. Some impressions are of the knitting itself, and other prints are text reproductions of knitting patterns with rudimentary illustrations. Generous borders centre these open, clean and sparse images, which are printed on blotter-thick paper.
The individual prints are displayed on a Craig gallery wall and are assembled in a limited-edition book.
Visual artist and bookbinder Ellen Timbre of Mule Mother Books, has assembled Rosvall's and Arsenault's single sheet, monochromatic prints (10" x 15") in a high-end limited-edition hand bound book, entitled
Contexture, whose open spine, screw-post format (11" x 15") is commercially familiar to many for its ubiquitous use in commercial photo albums and scrapbooks. This popular format allows for easy handling and closer examination of their prints.
Nested within
Contexture, and protected on both sides by a blank sheet, are thin, vellum-like clear plastic sheets, which are blind-embossed with the impression – without the use of ink, paints or dye – of Rosvall's knitted work.
The effect is subtle and forces the viewer to closer examine these textured impressions, which resemble alligator skin with its tactile ridges, bumps and indentations. Even though the marks are invisible, the textures created are indelible, inviting touch and exploration, made possible for the viewer by handling a display copy of
Contexture. The display copy engages the viewer physically and enables the viewer to tactically experience Rosvall's work.
During the first pandemic lock-down, film maker and artist Andrea Dorfman committed herself to documenting her experiences by producing one mini-book each week.
Dorfman combines simple, accessible images and text set in a typewriter-style font to produce bright, multi-coloured mini-books.
The mini-book format, which uses no adhesives or bindings, is achieved through folding, pinching and making a simple incision on a single rectangular piece of paper.
The resulting 8-panel mini-book, (folded size: 2.5" x 4"; flat size: 8" x 10"), is small enough to easily compile weekly content, but big enough to tell a visually-impactful, text-based short story/journal entry.
The Craig Gallery wall features 40 of Dorfman's mini-books displayed open and flat. This display results in half of the books' visuals and text appearing upside down (because the sheets are flat, not folded).
Far more accessible, are the variety of mini-books Dorfman has made available, (displayed atop a plinth), for visitors to read, handle and familiarize themselves with her work. When they do, they discover entertaining, reflective and sometimes self-deprecating first-person journal entries. The entire project can be viewed on Instagram at
www.instagram.com/dorfmanorama.
Also of interest to book and paper artists, is work by "Aglennco... a queer, multimedia artist who fabricates futures using printmaking, textiles and illustrations."
One of their creations is a sheet of rectangular white felt (portrait format), that they have transformed to resemble a lined sheet of note paper through careful stitching of red thread (for the vertical margins) and blue thread (for the horizontal lines). A clever, simple and impactful rendering.
Rosvall, Dorfman and Aglennco are part of 8 artists whose work appears in the exhibit
in combination at The Craig Gallery.
in combination is part of Visual Arts Nova Scotia (VANS) 2022-23 mentorship program where established artists are successfully paired with emerging artists.
in combination runs until July 30th, 2023.
Review by Charles Salmon
A recent show entitled Put A Lid On It was dedicated to collage and assemblage
art incorporating jar lids. It explores what the expression "to put a lid on it" means to both the artist and
the viewer.
