By Taylor Kigar
This Thursday, SCAD students took a much needed break from finals to attend “This Is Not a Demo: an etching and relief printmaking showcase.” This was the final show of Professor Deb Oden’s etching and relief classes. Guests gathered in an old historic house on Park Street brimming with etching and relief prints.
Etching is the process of incising an image into copper. These incised lines then hold ink and can be run through a press repeatedly to get multiple copies of the same image. The opposite of this process is relief. In relief printmaking, the image is drawn on a block of wood, and then carved around to create a raised image. The ink is then rolled on and held by the raised image.
The art of “This Is Not a Demo” was as diverse as the artists themselves. Senior photo major Jahmad Balugo showed an extensive group of his small prints. His loose and unruly style manifested itself in dirty cities and looming rudimentary faces that seemed like the interesting cousins of political cartoons.
Printmaking major Casey Sloate stood out with stunningly precise prints of stone textures and rock formations. Each print looked like the hidden corner of the deepest cavern or another layer of the fossil record scraped away.
Third-year illustration major August Northcut had both etching and relief pieces hanging, and his work was focused on the silhouettes of grimy factories and smoke stacks, draped in sweeping line-work.
Printmaking major Noelle Pflanz re-invented the form of fingerprints. Instead of the prints themselves, Pflanz reworked them into the appearance of delicately lined gems set against a background of soft splattered ink. She also embroidered her prints with thread, connecting the new fingerprints together with invisible hands.
Other students that exhibited were Alejandra Alvergue, Thea Milinaire, Justin Harris, Elise Mesnard, Anthony Viola, Elizabeth Younce, Kiara Boccia, Cynthia Conrad, Kelly Halladay, Kristina Pappas, Jennifer Piff, Michael Sjolin, Taylor Stone, Kevin Welsh and Andrew Lawandus.
“This is Not a Demo!” illustrated just how much precision it takes from artists to make powerful prints without a trial run.