Contemporary Art Space Chester: DEEP BLACK [Tiefschwarz], Printmakers Exhibition

Private View: Thursday 19 November 2015, 17.00 – 19.00

DEEP BLACK [Tiefschwarz] Deep Black [Tiefschwarz: the Printmaking Connection] exhibition of recent printmaking, artists’ work from Liverpool, Cologne and Pančevo, Serbia.

Exhibition runs Friday 20 November – Friday 11 December 2015
Open 10.00 – 16.00 Monday-Friday
Contemporary Art Space Chester, the University of Chester, Kingsway Buildings.

It is curious how ideas form when artists meet over a few drinks and exchange the secrets of their individual methods and process, particularly printmakers who are more than happy to indulge in those in depth conversations, possibly about type or print separations, surface and layers or recipes and qualities of inks. This series of reciprocal exhibitions was formed out such conversations, to the outside obsessive and possibly tiresome but not to the fascinated engaged practitioner.

The ‘Deep Black’ exhibition of graphic works presents the work of selected artists from England, Germany and Serbia, who work with the possibilities of visual representation and expression through contemporary printmaking. The first exhibition of contemporary graphics named “Deep Black” was held in Galerie VHS Köln, by initiative of German painter Georg Gartz, Liverpool artist Pete Clarke and Nada Denić and Milan Jakšić, artists from, Serbia. This initial exchange project started in Germany in 2009 with then annual reciprocal exhibitions and discussion projects in the various countries.

In 2010 ‘Deep Black’ was exhibited in the Ex Austro-Hungarian Army Barracks building turned art gallery now the Historical Archive of Serbia, Pančevo and then it toured to various exhibition venues across Serbia. http://www.arhivpancevo.org.rs/arhive.htm

In June 2014 ‘Deep Black‘ was presented in Cologne‘s historic and iconic Museum Zündorfer Wehrturm, the impressive Grade 11 listed Tower and Art Gallery built in 1771 on the banks of the Rhine. This beautiful and imaginative venue typical of Germany’s support for exhibiting artists provided an ideal opportunity to show the range of printmaking possibilities. The Liverpool artists included Pete Clarke’s Watch Tower collagraphs and relief and letterpress prints, Neil Morris’ etchings and imaginative screen prints and Hannah Fray’s delicate photo polymer and constructed prints, with heavy expressive dry points from Nada Denić and Milan Jakšić, Serbia to more lyrical and painterly prints from Cologne artists Georg Gartz and Walter Wolf, Sandra Zarth’s poetic work to Claus-Dieter Geissler reinventing photographic Platinum –Palladium and silver prints.

www.museum-zuendorfer-wehrturm.de
The ‘Deep Black’ project explores different attitudes and practices in European contemporary printmaking, that interesting meeting place between inventive traditional process and experimental uses of developing image making technology. These artists’ individual interpretations and practices can often represent the cultural characteristics, dilemmas and interesting spectrum of current attitudes in the different European countries.

The Exhibition at Contemporary Art Space Chester, the University of Chester’s contemporary gallery situated in the Art and Design Department at Kingsway will include new work from Liverpool artists Hannah Fray, Pete Clarke and Neil Morris, Pal Dečov, Nada Denić and Milan Jakšić, Pančevo, Serbia and Cologne artists Claus-Dieter Geissler, Georg Gartz and Andreas Vietz and Jutta Vollmer from the The Graphikwerkstatt in Cologne. The Werkstatt promotes the art of engraving, its workshop and gallery is well known in the North West of England having taken part in reciprocal residencies and exhibitions and led workshops in the Bluecoat Print Studios with Emma Gregory and the Universities of Central Lancashire and Liverpool John Moores.

www.graphikwerkstatt.de
Pete Clarke
www.peteclarke.org.uk

University of Chester, Faculty of Arts and Media, Kingsway,
Chester, CH2 2LB. t: 01244 515870 | www.chester.ac.uk/casc