The Marion Art Center continues to reach new artistic heights with its latest exhibit titled, The New Printmakers, which opened on February 18. A reception was hosted on March 4 for artists Taylor Hickey and Janie Kinnane and some 21 students from Tabor Academy and Old Rochester Regional High School.
Printmaking was first created in China as far back as 206 B.C. on silk. It wasn’t until the seventh century that printmaking on paper began. In the beginning, printmaking was used as a form of communication, such as the dissemination of Buddhist manuscripts.
The MAC’s exhibit displays the exactitude of the ancient form using more contemporary materials and printmaking technology. And whereas the ancients used the process to communicate, so too have the artists of this exhibit, depicting celestial-spatial concepts as well as earth’s bounty in the natural world.
Hickey, who calls herself an interdisciplinary visual artist, recently received a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Presently, her work is focused on geometric designs from the universe and possibly beyond. The works on display are three-dimensional representations of celestial bodies and prints created from linoleum blocks. However, Hickey doesn’t want to be typecast into specific artistic categories. Like her work, she wants to explore the entire art universe.
Inspired by the author Janna Levin’s book, “Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space,” Hickey has created a universe we can get up close to and explore, if only in our minds. She speaks glowingly of a stellated octahedron, an eight-sided outcome of triangular polyhedrons joined on three sides or, more simply put, a star shape.
In one example in the first-floor gallery, Hickey has created a book-like form that seems to contain its own black hole, infinitely boring through the pages into the void of space and time. A second offering on the second floor is another three-dimensional work. This one is constructed to show two stars colliding, shattering the outer layers of each. The intricate cutting both on the surfaces and in simulating the crashing of two stars shows the intensity Hickey has employed to create events that could happen in space far beyond our ability to see. To learn more about Hickey’s work, visit taylorhickeyart.com.
Jani Kinnane says she comes from a family of creative people, people who encouraged her from a young age to paint and draw. And while she liked it, Kinnane was not eager for a career in the arts. Eventually that would all change. She would come to believe that becoming an artist was not only her calling but a duty. “My grandfather told me that when God gives you a gift, it’s a sin not to use it.” And use it she has.
Kinnane carves in cherrywood to create the blocks from which emerge her images of fish, seaweed, plants and even whales (not quite to scale but large at 8 feet in length.) She has partnered with a traveling printmaker who has the capacity to produce very large prints. Kinnane said that process is thrilling yet a bit unnerving; with printmaking, you are never really sure how a piece will come out. Based on what we witnessed: spectacular.
In the first-floor gallery, you’ll find a print depicting the head of a woman adorned with what is clearly a folk-like headdress with cascading vines and flowers. But the woman herself seems very detached yet pensive. And then, we see her headdress has been tattered by unseen forces. Kinnane said it is a Ukrainian woman in traditional folk dress, but her headdress has been damaged by the war. With this work, Kinnane hopes to build awareness and funding for the people in this embattled country.
Kinnane’s works are realistic, hyper-realistic images from the natural world here on earth and speak to her Rhode Island upbringing, her home and her desire to spread joy. Kinnane’s art may be viewed on Instagram @charlielouworks.
The student submissions to the exhibit were created by Old Rochester Regional High School students Hannah Thorell, Abigail Paulette, Summer Williams, Kendell Hedges, Madeline Dugas, Hailee Duchane, Abigail Daniels, Emerson Femino, Elizabeth Higgins, Joseph Dupre, Ella Caesar, Shay-Ann Robertson and Aurora Hagden.
Tabor Academy students who submitted works are Joanne Huang, Emily Kilpatrick, Brady Kidney, Marin Theis, Nonapun Habanananda, Peyton Wolfe and Tyler Kompsch.
The Marion Art Center is open Thursday through Saturday from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
By Marilou Newell