Culture
OU Printmaking Prof Garners International Recognition
< < Back toOhio University printmaking professor Art Werger was recently recognized with the Grand Prize at the third biennial International Mezzotint Festival, a printmaking festival exhibiting artists from all over the world, in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
Werger, who is the chair of the printmaking department in the School of Art + Design, was also recognized in Guanlan, China, for his printmaking work at the 5th Guanlan International Print Biennial in May.
“This recognition is indeed good for Werger, personally and professionally, and it reflects well on the School, the College, and the University at large,” said David LaPolambara, director of the School of Art + Design.
According to Werger, there is a resurgence of interest around the world for mezzotint printmaking processes and artists, though it remains somewhat marginalized here in the US. “China has a highly supportive community of printmakers, including a huge museum of printmaking recently built in Guanlan,” which is part of the city of Shenzhen, north of Hong Kong.
The work recognized by the jury in Ekaterinburg includes a selection of smaller works revealing human figures in domestic and urban spaces, as well as a larger print titled Rising Tide, completed earlier this year. Werger describes his penchant for what some call realism, as a means to develop representational subject matter that becomes universal human metaphor.
When asked about how he became interested in the mezzotint process, he recalls his first attempts while teaching a printmaking class years ago, “as a demo, showing my students the technique, yet it actually turned into a final print. It was probably the only time that’s happened for me, so maybe because of that, I began to associate spontaneity with a medium not usually thought to be spontaneous.”
The technique is “much easier to show than to explain,” says Werger. He describes mezzotint as a metal plate etching process that produces a smooth tonal range image, by way of a slow, methodical smoothing out of a rough surface. Small plates can be completed quickly, but larger plates may take upwards of six months.
“Although the final results may seem to exhibit complete control, it is in fact the result of an ongoing struggle to achieve what is in my mind,” an outcome of time and effort that sometimes leads to surprise, Werger says.
LaPolambara describes Ohio University’s printmaking artists, both student and faculty, as a growing presence at national conferences, due to a “concerted effort by Art Werger and his colleagues and students to engage in the printmaking arts community both in and outside of Ohio University and Athens.”