Past, Future Combine in ‘Print Press Play’

“Print Press Play,”a collaboration between Jessica Meuninck-Ganger and Nathaniel Stern that blendscomplex printmaking with 21st-century computer art, has opened at ElaineErickson Gallery. As digital printmakers, they create images with tone, volume,color and dimension in rippling loops of “virtual” time with prints in motion,the new direction in printmaking.

These two nationallyacclaimed artists reference the seascapes of Japan’s early-19th-centuryprintmaker Hiroshige in The Multitude,an LCD-woodcut diptych with virtual “machinima” petrels climbing, circling andswooping from one screen to the other over a shimmering sunlit harbor.

Kinnickinnicis an intricate, remarkable work of images specific to Milwaukee. Two cameras mounted on the dash ofa car, one focused forward and the other into the rearview mirror, capturevideo of Bay View streetscenes. The video is then embedded into a traditional lithograph of thedriver’s view through the windshield.

“Print Press Play”runs concurrently with other works from this series in “Distill Life” at theMuseumof Wisconsin Art in West Bend. With the delightful aquatintetching on copper plate, Meninas, theartists recall Velazquez in images of their studio, dancing through the doorwayto meet viewers and invite them into their art.