PRESS RELEASE - APRIL 2001 

The Williams Gallery

8 Chambers Street

Princeton, NJ    08542 

phon e (609) 921-1142 

email: wmgallery@aol.com

web-site: www.wmgallery.com

  

 WHAT:  “UNFRAMED WORKS ON PAPER:  A SPECIAL ONE WEEK GALLERY RELOCATION SHOW OF UNFRAMED LIMITED EDITION FINE ART PRINTS BY GALLERY ARTISTS GEORGE CRAMER, SUSUMU ENDO, MARGARET KENNARD JOHNSON, JORG SCHMEISSER, ROLF WEIJBURG AND OTHERS.” 

 

WHEN:   April 24 -  April 28, 2001   HOURS: Daily: 11:00 am - 5:00 PM

Following this show and relocation period  the gallery will be open by appointment only.

 

 GEORGE  CRAMER, in a exhibit in 1987 was among the first curators of and participants in  a  “Computer Art” exhibit sponsored by The University of Wisconsin in Madison.  The show was titled “CRASH”.   “CRASH”  was the acronym for the focus of the exhibition: ComputeR-AssiSted Hardcopy. The major idea of the event was to provide a look at experienced artists who were then using the computer as an important tool in their work, with an interest in realizing it in some permanent, stable, and material form.  This thematic of preserving lasting images might also be related to the idea of a computer ‘crash’ , thereby losing important data.   

Cramer now heads the art and 3-D Imaging department at the  University of Wisconsin. As an educator and leader in the school of visual arts  in the field of art and computer technology he has seen, over the last several decades,  the emergence of a “new aesthetic” .  Work on display will include examples of much earlier work done with the help of an early Amiga 2500 computer and with the earliest ink-jet printer - a Xerox 4020 - now long extinct.  Newer images have been created with some of today’s most sophisticated hardware and software.

 Of his work Cramer says, “I try to define Art in our culture with each piece that I do . I use computer technology because that technology allows me to bring forward the ancient genetic codes into today's climate of power and change.   I am making Art because I have to. I have seen "too much now" to not care if beauty and kindness are left behind by our developing technically oriented culture”.

 SUSUMU ENDO was born in Kofu, Japan in 1933 and received his art education at the Kuwasawa Design School.  He has been called mysterious, a conjurer, a magician.  His photographic images seem not of this world, but employ a skill and beauty that challenge our sense of reality. After years of use of manual photographic techniques, in 1982 Endo began allowing a computer system to aid in the technically complex task of creating his photographic works.  In discussing his artistic process he says:  “My basic concept of design is ‘space and space.:  I feel there are different levels of consciousness that we can have of space, all coexisting.  This is the concept that drives all the work I create.  My main theme is the relationship of two different dimensions in space:  the real and the imaginary.  I feel a strong image can give us entrance to the other, unseen world.    Though I work more on computers these days, the  fundamental attitude to my creation has been pretty much the same as it was in the non-digital age. The reason why I stick with non-digital ways of thinking is because it can interact with my body and soul much more smoothly and naturally. But at the same time, I'm eager to take advantage of the latest technology and media for creation. What I'm always trying to do is to explore a new relationship with emerging media. And the exploration continues as confirming the origin of my artistic expressions”.

Mr. Endo has won numerous awards throughout the world including the USA, Japan, India, Ukraine, Spain, Bulgaria, Poland and Norway.  His work graces many corporate and museum collections such as The British Museum, London, Sao Paulo Art Museum, Brazil, (3) National Museums in Poland, Ibiza Contemporary Art Museum, Spain and Bhart Bhavan Roopankar Art Museum, India.   

MARGARET KENNARD JOHNSON:

Margaret Kennard  Johnson, of Princeton New Jersey, received a BFA from Pratt Institute, an MA in Design from the Univ. of Michigan and studied with Joseph Albers at Black Mountain College.  She spent over 8 years in Japan and co-authored the book “Japanese Prints Today”.  She has taught at the Museum of Modern Art and Pratt Institute and is represented in museum collections including the British Museum.  Her talents  as a educator, speaker, teacher , and above all as an  extraordinary  printmaker,  have  received recognition from around the world.

A magician in the are of print making, Ms. Johnson says:  “Materials and processes inspire and guide my work. They provide the means for forming imagery and composition. They vitalize and characterize my visual expressions, whether with handmade paper, intaglio/relief printmaking, or other mediums. The development of each work becomes a new adventure demanding its own assortment of known and, often, invented processes. The struggle is to find the combinations that work. The joy comes at the end of the trail when the work does seem to express something of what I am trying to say”. 

JOERG SCHMEISSER’S  distinguished printmaking career is inspired by a restless curiosity about the perception and essence of the visual world. Schmeisser’s imagination has been fired by regular injections of the unfamiliar or unknown.  An alphabetical index of his prints would commence with Antarctica, and conclude with Zanskar (Lakokh) with entries between on Canberra, Hamburg, Jerusalem, Nara, Peking and Venice.  A selection of etchings from many of these areas covering a wide time frame (1969 - 2000) will be on display.

 Born in Stolp, Pomerania in 1942,  Schmeisser attended art school in  Hamburg, Germany,  and took his post-graduate work at the Fine Arts University of Kyoto, Japan. He moved to Canberra, Australia in 1978  to head  the Printmaking Workshop of the Australian National University, Canberra School of Art.  His  work has been shown in more than 130 solo exhibitions world-wide and is represented in major private and public collections such as the Princeton University Graphic Arts Collection; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Australia; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris and the Kunsthalle, Hamburg. 

 YOSHIKATSU TAMEKANE, a young and most talented Japanese artist,  is  known for the addition of rich textural qualities to his woodblock images. His medium is described as "woodblock/collagraph," an intaglio printing technique in which pieces of cardboard and other textured materials are applied to the block, which is then inked and pressed onto another surface -- in Tamekane's case, hand-made paper. The artist works with water-based inks that look like they've been painted onto the paper rather than printed with a block, and he often supplements the inks with gold- and silver-leaf accents  to create dynamic images of depth and mystery.

 The woodblocks of Tamekane explore a variety of themes, including Time and Space.  He explains:  “I savor the past and also look forward to the next century as a time of hope and advancement for the human spirit”.

  Born in 1959, Mr. Tamekane studied at Sokei Academy of Fine Arts.  He is a member of the Japan Print Association and has shown 6 consecutive years in the prestigious CWAJ Print Show.  His art is in the collection of Bibliotheque National, Paris; Osaka Contemporary Art Center; Agency for Cultural Affairs, Tokyo; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia;  The Williams Collection, Princeton, NJ and numerous private and corporate collections.    

                                                              

Contact Mary Lou Bock, (609) 921-1142 or wmgallery@aol.com

 

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