How did the artist do that? The combinations of techniques and innovations introduced in contemporary printmaking can make the process behind a print mystifying. Simply looking at it may not be enough, even for the most seasoned of printmakers. 

Ranging from small-scale minimalist abstractions to enormous figurative scenes, the prints in Advancing Tradition: Twenty Years of Printmaking at Flatbed Press explore the diversity and technological changes that have shaped contemporary art. Since 1989, Flatbed Press in Austin, Texas, has actively participated in the printmaking revolution, inventing new techniques while improving on older, traditional methods. 

The exhibition features prints made at the Press by more than forty artists, all of whom work primarily in other media. The artists include Terry Allen, John Alexander, Michael Ray Charles, Suzi Davidoff, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Jack Hanley, Luis Jimenez, Teresa Gómez Martorell, Linda Ridgway, Dan Rizzie, Katie van Scherpenberg, Julie Speed, James Surls, and Joan Winter. A selection of matrices and tools together with gallery text accompanying the exhibition bring the physical aspects of printmaking to life as well as offering insights into printmaking fundamentals. 

The wide-ranging selection of examples in Advancing Tradition demonstrate three basic aspects of current printmaking: the uniqueness of the medium, the combination of new technologies with old, and the crucial role of collaboration. Making prints requires a similar amount of time and technical expertise to that needed for drawing, painting, or sculpture. Prints, however, enable the artist’s style and signature touch to be expressed in multiple impressions. For example, the over-sized press at Flatbed allowed James Surls to make super-sized woodcuts like Night Vision, which echo the monumental scale of his sculpture. His trademark symbols—crystal forms, eyes, needles, hands, snakes—are part of a shamanistic figure that could be an imposing witch doctor or an astrological sign. 

Terry Allen’s RAGE combines traditional etching with collage. Mexican wedding lace, collaged directly onto the paper, contrasts with the implied violence of the word. The four letters were deeply etched into the plate, in response to Allen’s directive to “Etch the hell out of it.” In Ad Referendum, Julie Speed pairs a drawing technique that imitates traditional engraving with collage elements made of photocopied illustrations taken from nineteenth-century religious books. The master printer then scanned the composition at an extremely high resolution for transfer to a photopolymer plate. The resultant plate image along with the complex polymer-gravure process enabled Speed to achieve jewel-like detail superior to that of her nineteenth-century print sources. 

Advancing Tradition was curated by Katie Robinson Edwards, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Art History, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, with assistance from Mark L. Smith, Ph.D., and Katherine Brimberry of Flatbed Press, Austin. Edwards has contributed to several museum publications and texts, written exhibition reviews, and lectured on modern and contemporary art.