Photo above: Faraway Memories by William Demaria

By F. Lennox Campello

One of my pet peeves in the lingo of the art world is the usurpation of the word “print.”

In fact, the most misused word in the world of art is the word “print,” as used in defining artwork as “limited edition print,” etc.

In the narrow, but true art definition of what an original art print is, a print is a work of art produced from an image worked by the artist on another material, usually a metal, Plexiglas, wood, linoleum, plastic plate, etc. These days maybe even a computer’s RAM.

Everything else is a reproduction.

And lawsuits will happen if suddenly a collector discovers that their “print” or “original” is in fact a reproduction.

Therefore, young padawans, if an artist paints or draws an image on any medium, and then has multiple images made from that original by an electro-mechanical or mechanical process using photographic or digital images (such as Iris or Gyclee), those images are reproductions – not prints.

However, because it would really be hard to market an artist’s work as “limited edition, signed and numbered reproductions,” the word “print” has been kidnapped by the marketers of art to apply to any set of multiple images – regardless of how they came to be, or what part the artist played in its creation.

It gets a bit murky when it comes to digital art – that is artwork that is created from scratch through the use of a computer or a photograph taken with a digital camera.

Once the file is done and finished and saved, then one can say that the image that comes out of the printer is the “print” in the true sense of the narrow art definition – much like the negative in traditional photography produces the photographic print.

However, a photograph that is taken, developed, printed in the darkroom and then scanned so that Giclees or Iris “prints” can be made from the photographic image means that those are reproductions made from the original photograph.

But a photograph taken with a digital camera and then has Iris/Giclees or any other digital prints made from the digital image in the memory card is a “real” print! Is that confusing enough for you?

Therefore, a digital medium like Giclee/Iris can be either a reproduction or a real print – it all depends on what the original source of the image is!

Printmakers are and should be especially sensitive to the misuse of the work “print” to market reproductions of artwork. One of the best places in town to buy true prints from very talented printmakers is the Washington Printmakers Gallery, which has been around for decades and decades and decades and has moved recently to 1675 Wisconsin Ave. NW on Book Hill in Georgetown. They’ve been around so long that sometime in the late 1980s I was actually in a juried competition at the gallery juried by none other than the great Joe Shannon!

Currently at the gallery is a three-person exhibition titled After Thought— emotional landscapes — featuring work by William Demaria, Erin Owen, and Oliver Stern. The show runs through February 25, 2024.

Erin Owen is “an ecofeminist sculptor and printmaker, soon to graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Oklahoma State University and currently teaching sustainable art classes at the Fairmont Center of the Arts in Cleveland, Ohio.” Her work is deeply influenced by her concern for the environment, and in this show she pushes the limit of “printmaking” as I defined it above.  For example, in Dreams of Glacier National Park, an etched cast glass sculpture which contains etched and very fragile glass balls filled with crude oil, she intelligently delivers her artistic driving force (the environment) while at the same time flexing some pretty powerful technical muscles in the physical delivery of the work.

Oliver Stern is “a graduating senior at Cornell University with a B.F.A working in printmaking, drawing, and photography”, while William Demaria, who is based in Baltimore, “graduated with a fine art degree from Cornell University. After working for three years as a master printer at Universal Limited Art Editions, inspired by the artists he had worked for, Demaria developed his artistic practice around monoprint and engraving.”

Like Owen, Stern appears to be very young in terms of years, but already showcasing some impressive artistic gravitas is his somewhat loose interpretations of his subject matter.

Demaria is clearly an experienced printmaker who has mastered multiple genres of this diverse art form.

The gallery tells us that “Demaria attempts to capture the emotions he experiences within the natural landscape using a visual language inspired by Rorschach tests. He is focused on the emotional connection between humanity and the landscape, seeking to preserve his experiences with the hope it will inspire others to value the natural landscape more.” The work is inspirational indeed, and I suspect that he would be equally at ease hanging out with printmaking peeps in the 16^th century as he is today in his very skilled and talented world of contemporary art printmaking.

Spectacular show – do not miss it!

About the Author: F. Lennox Campello’s art news, information, gallery openings, commentary, criticism, happenings, opportunities, and everything associated with the global visual arts scene with a special focus on the Greater Washington, DC area has been a premier source for the art community for over 20 years. Since 2003, his blog has been the 11th highest ranked art blog on the planet with over SIX million visitors.