Press
Published

Imprint Magazine 2010
Transcript of the text above:
“Addiction
An International exchange portfolio
By Ben Rak, ‘demonstrator’ and editioning printmaker, Cicada Press, COFA, UNSW

“In an era of increasingly saturated global communication, exemplified by the constant consumption of images, printmaking is the ideal medium for the exchange of intelligent, subtle and provocative thought.”

Addiction is an international exchange print portfolio featuring the work of students and staff from the University of New South Wales’s College of Fine Arts in Sydney and Alfred University’s School of Art & Design in New York. 
            Participants were asked to respond to the theme of addiction in an editionable medium.  Their responses covered the gamut of printmaking media and techniques- lithography, etching, silkscreen, relief printing, digital printing, and combinations thereof.
            The theme of addiction was chosen not so much to demonstrate the compulsive and often addictive nature of creating art, but rather, to draw an analogy between addictive behavior and obsessive behavior that is common in the world of printmaking when artists fetishise techniques, processes, and mark-making methods.  In Enrique Del Val’s etching The Print-Making-Addict- Thing, a printmaker is surrounded by the weird and wacky tools of the trade.  This printmaker looks “strung out” on the chosen media, holding an etching scribe as if it were a needle.  Paul Rushworth also touches on the idea of art-making as an addiction. The figure [a self portrait] is torn between the urge to create and the reality of working for a living.  He explains, “Anxious marks, symbols of sensuality, desire, escapism, dreaming, terror, and confusion saturate the image.”  His use of frenetic marks mirrors the fanatical and often conflicted position in which addicts [and frequently artists] find themselves- shall I indulge the need or deny it?
            While Sian McIntyre’s silk-screen prints on photographs aren’t about art-making-as-addicton, they do deal with the love-hate relationship that addicts have with their vice.  Sian blurs the lines between pain and gratification by changing the order of words in old letters: “I re-ordered  the original letter to create a romantic description of love and addiction.  Words that were once used to describe pain transform into declarations of lust and longing.” Similarly, an addicts conflict is featured in Alex Contino’s relief woodcut of what appears to be a Styrofoam coffee cup.  As suggested in the title The Cup of 1,000 Dilemmas, the addict associated with this image, too, seems to harbour mixed feelings about addiction.
            Taking a broader social perspective, two artists addressed the concept of consumption as addiction.  Justin Windman’s relief linocut 6 Grilled Cheddar on Whole Wheat portrays a figure eating.  Most of the figure is depicted in a representative fashion; its face however, is distorted, almost mangled.  Like Windman’s other works, this one reacts to affluent societies’ compulsive use of goods and services­: addiction to over-consumption is epitomized in his gruesome figure’s need to eat six sandwiches, not one or two.  Daniel Chant’s reduction linocut Power Hungry also deals with consumption as an addiction- in this case, the consumption of energy.  Like Windman, chant uses negative imagery, a monstrous figure in the midst of densely layered line work that is reminiscent of power lines  to demonstrate the addiction’s threat to the addict’s existence. 
            Art students commonly struggle to reconcile their respect for the history and traditions of printmaking with their desire to experiment with new technologies, or combinations of these.  In this portfolio, the American contingent has embraced digital print production while the Australians seem to relish hand printing, carrying on the traditional struggle to maintain consistency throughout the edition.  This divergent methodology can be attributed to differences in training: there is no right or wrong here, just a difference in approach. 
            Although half of the prints were created by artists in Australia and half by American artists, the portfolio is strongly cohesive.   Perhaps this cohesion is due to similarities between American and Australian cultures- both are industrialized nations with a European colonial past and strong multicultural influences.  Or perhaps the reason is simply that addiction is a universal phenomenon. “

Participating Artists:

Sydney: Tina Barahanos, Quitlan Brodie, Rafael Butron, Daniel Chant, Enrique Del Val, Itzick Fisher, Jess Hodgkinson, Michael Kempson, Sian McIntyre, Fernando Porto, Elizabeth Pozega, Ben Rak, Paul Rushworth.

New York: Jason Blandford, William Contino, Alex Contino, Alez Derrico, Coleen Donahoe, Kathryn Drury, Joel Kuschke, Anne Mills, Joseph Scheer, Alex Williams, Justin Windman

Addiction was produced in 2009 and exhibited in 2010.

Source:
Rak, B, 2010. Addiction, Imprint Magazine, Volume 45
Number 4, 2010