Printerey: Experimental printmaking by Odile Lueken and Maarten de Naeyer
Place
kunstkennerey, online
Time Period
01. February - 30. June 2022
Artists
Links
The virtual special exhibition 'Printerey' was created under the former gallery name kunstkennerey. The exhibition can be visited via the virtual reality platform Kunstmatrix.
Odile Lueken and Maarten de Naeyer are connected by their experimental approach to traditional printmaking processes. Both artists 'print' objects, composing new visual worlds and creating unique perspectives on everyday images and forms.
OBJECT PRINTEREY
With her hand-cut collage works, Odile Lueken creates her own imaginative worlds in which figures, creatures and forms are arranged in associative landscapes. Together with open titles such as 'Drowning' or 'Cold Eye', the viewers are guided and stimulated in their reception in a surrealistic manner. These colorful collages made from different materials, such as magazine clippings or photocopies, were reproduced in a second step as monochrome etchings. The collages were first created as a visual form of the daily book, 'temple book', on a trip to Japan. In the meantime, she continued her collection of motifs in everyday life and is working on a third temple book.
She writes about her collages:
“The collages sometimes take the smallest details from their original context and throw them into a larger image context. This approach can be traced directly back to my contact with the Japanese culture of reduction, which strongly influenced me and inspired me to develop the collages in the first place. I see the results as an invitation to approach and become aware of one’s surroundings in a completely different way.”
The imprint of real objects is also omnipresent in her cyanotypes: maps, folded origami figures or boats. Using the exposure technology developed in 1842, the objects are captured on the paper in impressive cyan blue. In the latest series, the 'Kayiograms', objects collected on the beach (mainly plastic elements and nets) are integrated into folded boats and exposed. In terms of motifs and content, Odile Lueken combines her enthusiasm for Japanese culture and origami folding with current topics such as environmental pollution and the uncertain future of our oceans.
“In Japan, folding paper (origami) is a tradition. The folded crane is one of the oldest origami known. Every child can do it there – similar to the paper boat here. […] If you fold a crane and a wish in your mind for the person who is to receive the crane, the wish will come true for both of you. Inspired by this, I fold boats with the wish that this will bring longevity and happiness to the ocean.”
FORM PRINTEREY
Maarten de Naeyer cuts shapes from different materials and combines the individual elements into abstract compositions. In a second step, these are painted with printing ink and printed. The result is similar in structure to the traditional linocut technique and can be described as a type of relief printing. However, the printing process is unique and random - unique pieces are created that are characterized by small bumps and unintentional structures.
In his predominantly monochrome works, Maarten de Naeyer uses almost exclusively black and white, with individual additional colors adding interesting accents:
“de puurheid van vormen [is] te behouden en de negatieve witruimte in dialoog te laten gaan met de compositie.” [This preserves the purity of the forms and allows the negative white space to enter into a dialogue with the composition.]
As with Odile Lueken's collages, suggestive titles complement the associative imagery. The large-format works thus become spaces for discussion of everyday topics such as 'counterproductive', 'decay' or 'insomnia'. Here too there is a direct connection between the printed world of forms and the real one.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Odile Lueken and Maarten de Naeyer are connected not only by their experimental approach to printing, but also by their activities outside of art: both work successfully as graphic designers. Everyday creative activity requires a balance - both artists agree on this. In different ways, they both find their way into the physical 'print shop', far from the digital world.
Odile Lueken lives and works in Hamburg. Maarten de Naeyer lives and works in Leuven.