Bleu Acier opening: New Editions

NEW EDITIONS
OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY JUNE 15, 2007, 6-9 PM
June 15 through July 31, 2007

INTRODUCTION BY ERIKA SCHNEIDER AT 7PM

OPEN ATELIER VISIT WITH PRINTMAKING DEMONSTRATIONS:
Saturdays June 16th and 30th at 2 PM
June 16th Relief Printing with Dominique Labauvie
June 30th Monotype with Debra Jo Radke
Reservations required 813. 272. 9746/ each will be limited to 15 visitors

Bleu Acier is proud to present their new fine art print editions published during 2006 and 2007. For many of the artists - accustomed to working in other media from painting to video - this was their first print project, and first invitation to work on prints at a professional press. This collaborative exploration of new materials combined with the experience of a master printmaker produced a striking range of works.The painters Neil Bender, Elisabeth Condon, Kim Curtis, Pierre Mabille, Steve McClure, and Judith Sturm each worked on their first series of monotypes. Monotype, which signifies a unique work (not an edition or a multiple) is a combination of painting or drawing and printing. The artist works directly on the surface with printing inks. When the image is built to desired effect, it is run through the press as either a single pass, or a series of "built" layers or multiple passes. Printmaking allows a quality of layers, surfaces and color combinations not found in painting.Neil Bender works on one-run images and then manipulates them after printing. Elisabeth Condon transforms space and the surfaces of her landscapes and abstract compositions through her intense layering technique. Kim Curtis found equivalents to the editing process she uses in her oil paintings, and Judith Sturm developed a much freer manner of image making through the monotype. Pierre Mabille's conceptually minimal approach to building space grew even more refined within the monotype process.For the artists Hervé DiRosa, Steve McClure and Vicky Colombet, the idea of collaborating remotely from their respective locales in Miami and New York generated an interest in direct gravure. Direct gravure uses a drawing on mylar made by the artist which is then transferred to a copper plate using the photogravure process. This process generates images that utilize similar marking techniques found within other aspects of the artists' work. The advantage of direct gravure is it allows artists to work wherever they are and send the mylar to the shop to be processed. Often the plates are continued by hand when the artist can visit the shop.
Marie Yoho Dorsey uses direct gravure as a starting point for her unique images which she embellishes with drawing and embroidery.DiRosa's triptych of the Miami urbanscape has the rich qualities of his ink drawings. Colombet's landscape offers a different spatial reading than that of her suspended pigment paintings. In Steve McClure's monotypes and gravures we discover a different spatial spontaneity than in
the paintings.

Dominique Labauvie, who utilizes the relief process for its ability to negotiate positive and negative space in a manner similar to his sculpture, combines woodcut imagery with monotype. Using monotype as the image "ground" allows him a freedom of mark-making that generates very rich and sensual surfaces akin to his pastel drawings.Robyn Voshardt and Sven Humphrey chose to do a diptych of 3-color woodcuts based on their video "When I Look Up, I Fall Down," presented at the DiVA video fair in New York earlier this year. The artists interpreted video stills onto woodblocks, and ended up discarding the stills in order to be influenced by the direct marking possibilities on the wood. As with other parts of their oeuvre, their drawing space takes over the time-based space making for an interesting perception of movement.Bleu Acier is also pleased to include several guest artists in the show:
Tom Antista, a photographer and designer from Atlanta, Georgia, completed an impressive series of photogravures here at Bleu Acier. His boxed set of eleven portraits of New York is entitled "ELEVEN."Brian Reedy, an artist who lives and works in Miami and is represented by the Brook Dorsch Gallery of Miami will show his woodcut series entitled "Eleventh Hour." With these very stark linear woodcuts, each image is packed with social commentary and humor.Debra Radke, a painter and printmaker who lives and works in Tampa, has been working in monotype at Bleu Acier for the past year and has invented new layering systems for her work. The monotypes have a glowing quality that is very unique.

NEW EDITIONS:
Neil Bender
Vicky Colombet
Elisabeth Condon
Kim Curtis
Hervé DiRosa
Marie Yoho Dorsey
Rachel Hoffman
Dominique Labauvie
Pierre Mabille
Steve McClure
Judith Sturm
Robyn Voshardt/Sven Humphrey

Guests:
Tom Antista
Debra Radke
Brian Reedy courtesy of Brook Dorsch

BLEU ACIER INC. is an active fine art print publisher, print atelier, gallery and live-in loft that functions at the intersection of private and public space where art and the city keep company. Bleu Acier exhibits works in all disciplines by emerging, mid-career and established artists from the U.S. and Europe.


Gallery Hours: Saturdays 1 – 5 PM and by appointment
For further information contact Erika Schneider
109 WEST COLUMBUS DRIVE TAMPA, FL 33602
TEL/FAX: 813 272 9746 BLEUACIER.COM