EXHIBITION
Reading, Writing, Defining: USM Book Arts at Stone House Faculty Exhibition April 16-June 1, 2012
Atrium Art Gallery, University of Southern, Maine, Lewiston-Auburn College
Atrium Art Gallery, University of Southern, Maine, Lewiston-Auburn College
EXHIBITION
Navigating the Currents: 100 Inkteraction Reactions
Inkteraction is the web's largest community dedicated specifically to printmakers. With members spread out across the globe, the network acts as a central meeting place. In a time when mastery of the internet is an essential skill for any artist, the administrators of Inkteraction asked 100 community members to volunteer their interpretation of how Inkteraction helps the contemporary printmaker to navigate the electronic currents of the web. Traveling exhibition to Texas Tech University, Cedar Valley College, McNeese State University and Ned McWherter West TN Cultural Arts Center, Jackson, TN
Inkteraction is the web's largest community dedicated specifically to printmakers. With members spread out across the globe, the network acts as a central meeting place. In a time when mastery of the internet is an essential skill for any artist, the administrators of Inkteraction asked 100 community members to volunteer their interpretation of how Inkteraction helps the contemporary printmaker to navigate the electronic currents of the web. Traveling exhibition to Texas Tech University, Cedar Valley College, McNeese State University and Ned McWherter West TN Cultural Arts Center, Jackson, TN
EXHIBITION
Print/Counter-Print
Featuring work from the artists of Peregrine Press and Zea Mays printmaking studios March 2-April 14 at Rose Contemporary Gallery Portland, Maine and at the Sanford Gallery, Zea Mays Printmaking Studios in Florence, Massachusetts in May 2012.
Featuring work from the artists of Peregrine Press and Zea Mays printmaking studios March 2-April 14 at Rose Contemporary Gallery Portland, Maine and at the Sanford Gallery, Zea Mays Printmaking Studios in Florence, Massachusetts in May 2012.
*REVIEW*
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD December 11, 2011
Elizabeth Jabar imbues 'Kindred' with spirit of Lebanon
I had been waiting for years for a show like Elizabeth Jabar's "Kindred" at Waterville's Common Street Gallery. The reason is that Waterville has been home to a significant Lebanese population since the 19th century -- a fact known by far too few Mainers who aren't themselves of Lebanese descent.
While I wish it were more obvious in the show that Jabar's Lebanese heritage is her main inspiration, the clues are there, even though they might be largely invisible to casual visitors. However, as someone who grew up in Waterville with many friends of Lebanese heritage and fond memories of events like the community dinners in the basement of St. Joseph's Maronite Church, I have long been a huge fan of Waterville's Lebanese culture. My wife and I even served spinach pies, zatar and other delicacies from the humble but ever wonderful restaurant, Lebanese Cuisine, at our wedding.
Fittingly, Common Street Gallery looks over the Kennebec River toward the old Scott Paper mill at the spot known as the Head of Falls which, decades ago, housed a purely Lebanese neighborhood. The Lebanese Maronites had come to Waterville to work in the local factories and on the railroad. Maronites are Catholics, so they attended mass at Sacred Heart and other local Latin Rite churches until a Maronite priest arrived in 1924 and they were able to worship together as a community -- in Arabic.
"Kindred" features 12 pictorial works on paper, several rolled "books" and enough additional elements such as scrolls hung from the ceiling and in a display case as to blur the line with installation.
Jabar's works defy easy categorization, but can generally be described as waxed monoprints with collage elements. While two works are floated in box frames, most are single sheets of paper hung directly on the wall.
The pictorial works are mostly based on variations of three images of Bedouin women. However, the most prominent and legible image is of a woman holding a child; together, they look and feel very much like Mary holding baby Jesus. This idea is reinforced by the altarpiece logic of "Offering," a large red triptych installation surrounded by celebratory cutouts and scroll streamers. While there is a non-Western nomadic flavor to it, it feels a lot like Christmas.
While Jabar was undoubtedly motivated by her own cultural heritage and identity, her meditations are broad enough -- especially in the context of Waterville's history -- to prove that the show isn't simply about her. (I am no fan of art in which "self-expression" is used as an excuse for narcissistic self-involvement.)
While the repeated print matrix images make for easily recognized starting points, the most compelling thing about Jabar's work is her quietly insistent and multi-layered approach to process. Any given piece might incorporate lithograph, collagraph, screen printing, woodcut, wax, dye, thread and cut paper -- or any combination of all of these.
And rather than playing up some ultra-sophisticated, multi-media, art-world approach to collage, Jabar adopts a craft aesthetic by sewing many of the sheets together with thread -- leaving needles and T-pins visible within the work. The tapestry and fabric references have many effects on the status of the work, but the most palpable is the artist's claiming a respectful affinity with her Bedouin forebears rather than a superior look down upon them.
One work in the show only revealed itself to me after I looked past the main figure, which is the most awkward of the repeated images. It features an ochre sheet covered in layers of printed and cut-out leaves draping down like a lush, hanging autumn garden, but the overall flatness is opened up by what at the bottom of the scene looks like so many leaves reflected in the soft water of a tree-sheltered pond.
A particularly interesting piece, "Bedouin Women, In Due Season," features a small black image of the Mary figure in the center of a pink folio covered with red paper pomegranates and printed paper tresses. Simple strands of red thread reach from the mother and child like blood lines out toward abstract pie wheels printed on the sides of the image. It seems quite simple at first, but its metaphors and symbols impressively refuse to be pigeonholed.
I think my favorite piece, however, is "Bedouin Women, The Harvest." It is an ochre-toned work featuring images of wheat and a series of cut-out, hanging resurrection flower roots that, to me, look appealingly like garlic bulbs. Stylized white lines of plants printed on the surface appear as memory wisps of past plenty. In all, it has a pleasant tonal pulse with sectioned rhythms that play up the meanings of its layers and depth.
While "Kindred" has a few awkward passages and a highly abstracted relationship to its subject of cultural identity, it is absolutely worth checking out. It's quite an accomplishment by Jabar to have produced such a thoughtful show relating to Waterville's Lebanese history and its unique and largely hidden heritage.
Freelance writer Daniel Kany is an art historian who lives in Cumberland. He can be contacted at:
dankany@gmail.com
Elizabeth Jabar imbues 'Kindred' with spirit of Lebanon
I had been waiting for years for a show like Elizabeth Jabar's "Kindred" at Waterville's Common Street Gallery. The reason is that Waterville has been home to a significant Lebanese population since the 19th century -- a fact known by far too few Mainers who aren't themselves of Lebanese descent.
While I wish it were more obvious in the show that Jabar's Lebanese heritage is her main inspiration, the clues are there, even though they might be largely invisible to casual visitors. However, as someone who grew up in Waterville with many friends of Lebanese heritage and fond memories of events like the community dinners in the basement of St. Joseph's Maronite Church, I have long been a huge fan of Waterville's Lebanese culture. My wife and I even served spinach pies, zatar and other delicacies from the humble but ever wonderful restaurant, Lebanese Cuisine, at our wedding.
Fittingly, Common Street Gallery looks over the Kennebec River toward the old Scott Paper mill at the spot known as the Head of Falls which, decades ago, housed a purely Lebanese neighborhood. The Lebanese Maronites had come to Waterville to work in the local factories and on the railroad. Maronites are Catholics, so they attended mass at Sacred Heart and other local Latin Rite churches until a Maronite priest arrived in 1924 and they were able to worship together as a community -- in Arabic.
"Kindred" features 12 pictorial works on paper, several rolled "books" and enough additional elements such as scrolls hung from the ceiling and in a display case as to blur the line with installation.
Jabar's works defy easy categorization, but can generally be described as waxed monoprints with collage elements. While two works are floated in box frames, most are single sheets of paper hung directly on the wall.
The pictorial works are mostly based on variations of three images of Bedouin women. However, the most prominent and legible image is of a woman holding a child; together, they look and feel very much like Mary holding baby Jesus. This idea is reinforced by the altarpiece logic of "Offering," a large red triptych installation surrounded by celebratory cutouts and scroll streamers. While there is a non-Western nomadic flavor to it, it feels a lot like Christmas.
While Jabar was undoubtedly motivated by her own cultural heritage and identity, her meditations are broad enough -- especially in the context of Waterville's history -- to prove that the show isn't simply about her. (I am no fan of art in which "self-expression" is used as an excuse for narcissistic self-involvement.)
While the repeated print matrix images make for easily recognized starting points, the most compelling thing about Jabar's work is her quietly insistent and multi-layered approach to process. Any given piece might incorporate lithograph, collagraph, screen printing, woodcut, wax, dye, thread and cut paper -- or any combination of all of these.
And rather than playing up some ultra-sophisticated, multi-media, art-world approach to collage, Jabar adopts a craft aesthetic by sewing many of the sheets together with thread -- leaving needles and T-pins visible within the work. The tapestry and fabric references have many effects on the status of the work, but the most palpable is the artist's claiming a respectful affinity with her Bedouin forebears rather than a superior look down upon them.
One work in the show only revealed itself to me after I looked past the main figure, which is the most awkward of the repeated images. It features an ochre sheet covered in layers of printed and cut-out leaves draping down like a lush, hanging autumn garden, but the overall flatness is opened up by what at the bottom of the scene looks like so many leaves reflected in the soft water of a tree-sheltered pond.
A particularly interesting piece, "Bedouin Women, In Due Season," features a small black image of the Mary figure in the center of a pink folio covered with red paper pomegranates and printed paper tresses. Simple strands of red thread reach from the mother and child like blood lines out toward abstract pie wheels printed on the sides of the image. It seems quite simple at first, but its metaphors and symbols impressively refuse to be pigeonholed.
I think my favorite piece, however, is "Bedouin Women, The Harvest." It is an ochre-toned work featuring images of wheat and a series of cut-out, hanging resurrection flower roots that, to me, look appealingly like garlic bulbs. Stylized white lines of plants printed on the surface appear as memory wisps of past plenty. In all, it has a pleasant tonal pulse with sectioned rhythms that play up the meanings of its layers and depth.
While "Kindred" has a few awkward passages and a highly abstracted relationship to its subject of cultural identity, it is absolutely worth checking out. It's quite an accomplishment by Jabar to have produced such a thoughtful show relating to Waterville's Lebanese history and its unique and largely hidden heritage.
Freelance writer Daniel Kany is an art historian who lives in Cumberland. He can be contacted at:
dankany@gmail.com
*EXHIBITION*
Common Street Gallery is pleased to announce a new exhibition of works on paper by artist Elizabeth Jabar. The exhibition 'Kindred' will be on view from November 11 to December 28, with an artist reception at the gallery on Friday, November 11 from 5-8 pm. The public is invited to attend.
Elizabeth Jabar is the Associate Professor of Printmaking at the Maine College of Art in Portland where she lives with her husband, photographer Sean Alonzo Harris and their daughter Enrica. She is a Waterville native and has fond, vivid memories of roaming through the Colby College Art Museum as a young girl and being completely enchanted by the paintings and prints in the gallery's collections.
Professor Jabar returns to her roots to mount an exhibition of prints, paper cuts, and artist books that reflect on the ideas of kinship, ancestry and cultural heritage. Working from a narrative framework, She uses a lexicon of abstracted and representational forms that come from a diversity of sources including, nature, folk art traditions, textiles, and the human figure. Her densely layered, vividly colored works are made using a combination of print techniques - woodcut, silkscreen, and lithography, as well as the use of dyes, wax, and thread. Jabar’s works also expand the conventions of the print medium, and utilize nontraditional formats including cut paper, book objects, and unframed wall compositions.
Jabar's works have a strong material presence, and her unique approach to both form and format creates a multi-sensory experience for the viewer. She explains that her work conjures multi-layered narratives that lead us away from the ordinary into a contemplative space full of color, potent symbols, and a unique visual language that is not easily categorized.
These formal and material strategies underscore what Jabar states is her goal of “reflecting upon the richness and complexities of cultural identity.” In her exhibition 'Kindred', Elizabeth Jabar poignantly captures diverse narratives and interprets what it means to be in kinship with our cultural ancestors.
Jabar’s work is in the collections of Pratt Institute, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Tides Insti¬tute, Maine Arts Commission, Amity Arts Foundation, New York Public Library and Print Zero Studios. Her work was recently published in 50/ 50 A Survey of Contemporary Printmaking. Jabar has also won grants and awards including a fellowship residency at the Quimby Colony in 2010, and Vermont Studio Center in 2009. Elizabeth is Associate Professor and Chair of Printmaking at Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine. Elizabeth has also won awards for her teaching and service including the Donald Harward Faculty Award for Service Learning Excellence from Maine Campus Compact in 2011, and the Roger Gilmore Award for Service to the College from Maine College of Art, also in 2011. She received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts and her MFA degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.
Her works have been shown at galleries and museums nationally and internationally, including Women Networking in Zanzibar, Tanzania, Vic¬toria Arts Connection, Victoria, BC, Canada, Red Gher Gallery, National Gallery of Art, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Pyramid Atlantic, Rhode Island School of Design, Long Beach Island Foundation for the Arts and Sciences, Montserrat College, Colby College Museum of Art, The Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, The Center for Maine Contemporary Art, University of New England, The College of the Atlantic, La Jolla Fiber Arts, La Jolla California, Print Zero Studios, Seattle, Washington, Brighthill Press, Treadwell, New York, Hunter College, New York and The Center for Book Arts, New York, NY.
Elizabeth Jabar is the Associate Professor of Printmaking at the Maine College of Art in Portland where she lives with her husband, photographer Sean Alonzo Harris and their daughter Enrica. She is a Waterville native and has fond, vivid memories of roaming through the Colby College Art Museum as a young girl and being completely enchanted by the paintings and prints in the gallery's collections.
Professor Jabar returns to her roots to mount an exhibition of prints, paper cuts, and artist books that reflect on the ideas of kinship, ancestry and cultural heritage. Working from a narrative framework, She uses a lexicon of abstracted and representational forms that come from a diversity of sources including, nature, folk art traditions, textiles, and the human figure. Her densely layered, vividly colored works are made using a combination of print techniques - woodcut, silkscreen, and lithography, as well as the use of dyes, wax, and thread. Jabar’s works also expand the conventions of the print medium, and utilize nontraditional formats including cut paper, book objects, and unframed wall compositions.
Jabar's works have a strong material presence, and her unique approach to both form and format creates a multi-sensory experience for the viewer. She explains that her work conjures multi-layered narratives that lead us away from the ordinary into a contemplative space full of color, potent symbols, and a unique visual language that is not easily categorized.
These formal and material strategies underscore what Jabar states is her goal of “reflecting upon the richness and complexities of cultural identity.” In her exhibition 'Kindred', Elizabeth Jabar poignantly captures diverse narratives and interprets what it means to be in kinship with our cultural ancestors.
Jabar’s work is in the collections of Pratt Institute, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Tides Insti¬tute, Maine Arts Commission, Amity Arts Foundation, New York Public Library and Print Zero Studios. Her work was recently published in 50/ 50 A Survey of Contemporary Printmaking. Jabar has also won grants and awards including a fellowship residency at the Quimby Colony in 2010, and Vermont Studio Center in 2009. Elizabeth is Associate Professor and Chair of Printmaking at Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine. Elizabeth has also won awards for her teaching and service including the Donald Harward Faculty Award for Service Learning Excellence from Maine Campus Compact in 2011, and the Roger Gilmore Award for Service to the College from Maine College of Art, also in 2011. She received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts and her MFA degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.
Her works have been shown at galleries and museums nationally and internationally, including Women Networking in Zanzibar, Tanzania, Vic¬toria Arts Connection, Victoria, BC, Canada, Red Gher Gallery, National Gallery of Art, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Pyramid Atlantic, Rhode Island School of Design, Long Beach Island Foundation for the Arts and Sciences, Montserrat College, Colby College Museum of Art, The Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, The Center for Maine Contemporary Art, University of New England, The College of the Atlantic, La Jolla Fiber Arts, La Jolla California, Print Zero Studios, Seattle, Washington, Brighthill Press, Treadwell, New York, Hunter College, New York and The Center for Book Arts, New York, NY.
EXHIBITION
Portland, Maine – A new exhibition of collaborative prints created jointly by the artists of Portland’s Peregrine Press and the artists of Women Networking in Zanzibar, Tanzania, will be held in the Lewis Gallery of Portland Public Library on April 1 through May 28, 2011.
A reception for the exhibit Dunia Moja/One World will be held at the Library on April 8, 2011 from 5 – 7 p.m., followed by a presentation at 7 pm. by Mark and Aimee Bessire, titled “Reflections on Contemporary East African Art.” Mark Bessire is the Director of the Portland Museum of Art and Founder and Curator of the East African Biennial. Aimee Bessire is Assistant Professor of African Studies at Bates College and Founding Director of the Africa Schoolhouse, Ntulya, Tanzania. All the events are open to the public free of charge. The project is funded in part by grants from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
This unique print exchange was conceived by Alice Spencer, a founding member of Peregrine Press, after visiting Zanzibar in early 2010 and teaching the fundamentals of stenciling and block printing to 12 professional Muslim henna artists. The two groups of artists then agreed to create individual editions of base prints apiece and exchange them for distribution to a second artist in the other group. Responding intuitively and imaginatively to the base print as a background — there were no rules! — the second artist then added another layer of gestures, imagery, or manipulations to finish the prints.
The two resulting matched sets of collaborative prints are unique, showcasing the deep similarities — and mysterious differences — between kindred spirits working "together" across a distance of 6,000 miles. The prints are being exhibited simultaneously at the Portland Public Library and in Stone Town, Zanzibar, from April 1 to May 28, 2011.
In addition to the prints, the Dunia Moja exhibition in Portland will showcase a variety of maps, photographs and traditional colored Tanzanian clothing wraps, called kangas (one of which was created by a group of Peregrine artists).
A percentage of the proceeds from the sale of prints in this show will be sent to Women Networking in Zanzibar, so that they may purchase additional supplies for their artwork, as well as to the Portland (Maine) English as a Second Language Scholarship Fund.
Peregrine Press is a Maine-based nonprofit group founded in 1991, located in the Bakery Building on Pleasant Street in Portland and dedicated to providing presses, shared space and workshops for thirty professional fine arts printmakers, as well as educational programs for the public. For additional information visit our website: www.peregrinepress.com
Portland, Maine – A new exhibition of collaborative prints created jointly by the artists of Portland’s Peregrine Press and the artists of Women Networking in Zanzibar, Tanzania, will be held in the Lewis Gallery of Portland Public Library on April 1 through May 28, 2011.
A reception for the exhibit Dunia Moja/One World will be held at the Library on April 8, 2011 from 5 – 7 p.m., followed by a presentation at 7 pm. by Mark and Aimee Bessire, titled “Reflections on Contemporary East African Art.” Mark Bessire is the Director of the Portland Museum of Art and Founder and Curator of the East African Biennial. Aimee Bessire is Assistant Professor of African Studies at Bates College and Founding Director of the Africa Schoolhouse, Ntulya, Tanzania. All the events are open to the public free of charge. The project is funded in part by grants from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
This unique print exchange was conceived by Alice Spencer, a founding member of Peregrine Press, after visiting Zanzibar in early 2010 and teaching the fundamentals of stenciling and block printing to 12 professional Muslim henna artists. The two groups of artists then agreed to create individual editions of base prints apiece and exchange them for distribution to a second artist in the other group. Responding intuitively and imaginatively to the base print as a background — there were no rules! — the second artist then added another layer of gestures, imagery, or manipulations to finish the prints.
The two resulting matched sets of collaborative prints are unique, showcasing the deep similarities — and mysterious differences — between kindred spirits working "together" across a distance of 6,000 miles. The prints are being exhibited simultaneously at the Portland Public Library and in Stone Town, Zanzibar, from April 1 to May 28, 2011.
In addition to the prints, the Dunia Moja exhibition in Portland will showcase a variety of maps, photographs and traditional colored Tanzanian clothing wraps, called kangas (one of which was created by a group of Peregrine artists).
A percentage of the proceeds from the sale of prints in this show will be sent to Women Networking in Zanzibar, so that they may purchase additional supplies for their artwork, as well as to the Portland (Maine) English as a Second Language Scholarship Fund.
Peregrine Press is a Maine-based nonprofit group founded in 1991, located in the Bakery Building on Pleasant Street in Portland and dedicated to providing presses, shared space and workshops for thirty professional fine arts printmakers, as well as educational programs for the public. For additional information visit our website: www.peregrinepress.com
PUBLICATION
Selections from the PrintZero Studios Exchange, by Jeremy Cody
A collection of 30 prints, representing a cross section of contemporary printmaking, juried from the PrintZero Studios Seventh International Exchange.
printzerostudios.com
Selections from the PrintZero Studios Exchange, by Jeremy Cody
A collection of 30 prints, representing a cross section of contemporary printmaking, juried from the PrintZero Studios Seventh International Exchange.
printzerostudios.com
Solo Exhibition MECA news feed
Following a year on sabbatical and a residency at Quimby Colongy, Printmaking professor Elizabeth Jabar begins this academic year with a solo exhibition at Susan Massch Fine Art in Portland. Elizabeth Jabar: A Quiet Habitation will run from November 5th through December 18th. An opening reception will be held on Friday, November 5th from 5 to 8 p.m.
From the review in Artscope Magazine:
"Cultural fusion is a delicate process. It can be accomplished through the exploration of concepts like ethnicity and heritage, which are often gray areas for our country today. Elizabeth Jabar etches for this very fusion. She lets her lines, cords, and threads transcend material realms and discover the spiritual. The combination of her traditional textile and visually crafted narrative encourages viewers to consider the ideas of legacy, kinship, remembrance, and rebirth. Jabar's lithography works convey this through her own personal language for exploring the abstract.This printmaker will wow you with her artistic skill, religious context, and incorporation of folk art motifs."
