LIZ CHALFIN
Iterations: 2021-2022
September 16 – October 30, 2022
Opening and Artist Reception
Friday, September 16, 5-7pm
Demo/Conversation
at First Proof Press
183 Main Street (downstairs)
Sunday, October 9, 4-6pm
This Strange Time 2, 2021, collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, sumi ink
In 2020 I decided to stop consuming more resources for my art and made a commitment to reuse and upcycle as much material as possible into new work. I have drawers of old prints and stacks of etched metal plates, papers I’ve collected over the years, tubes of ink and untouched matrices waiting for imagery.
Through a 48-hour deep etch into old printing plates, I created a cast of copper figures born from observations of people in public places. I routinely photograph people at fairs, museums, parades paying attention to posture, gesture and how they occupy space. I’m fascinated by the visual poetry of two people leaning in to talk to each other, or the tension of someone walking away from a crowd. The photos are often the source material for my images.
These copper figures travel through this body of work, reformed and re-incarnated through embossing, drawing, collage, and intaglio processes. Each work of art that emerged from this process is a new iteration. I relished the flexibility of being able to rearrange them in different compositions, to juxtapose them with collaged and drawn elements to elicit a range of meanings and expressions. During the two years of working with these characters they have at different times reflected my feelings about the pandemic, climate change, interpersonal relationships and the precarious state of humankind.
The constraints I put on myself for this project gave me limitations that challenged me and asked me to come up with new solutions. For example, when a plate printed too light, instead of re-making the plate I reworked it by scratching into it directly with a drypoint needle to add energy and movement, working in a way that I had not done before, gesturally and expressively. I printed on both sides of papers and used plates both right-side up and upside down. Much like life during these last two years, I’m learning to work within constraints and finding new joy and freedom in the process.
~Liz Chalfin
Rich Turnbull’s essay on Iterations
Liz Chalfin
Clarion Call, 2022
photopolymer intaglio, drypoint, beeswax, thread
13” x 45.5” (unframed)
$3000
“Printmaking is my medium because it is process heavy and gives me unexpected results to respond to. At each point in a process there is an opportunity for creative intervention, and I exploit the way an image transforms through each step. Often my work begins as a photograph, becomes a drawing, is made into a printing plate, and then is further transformed through inking and printing.”
ITERATIONS
My art making is informed by my travels (near and far, large and small), as much as by technical innovations in the printmaking medium. I work primarily in intaglio – from copper and aluminum plate etching to the more contemporary forms of photopolymer intaglio. I use the structures of prints and artist’s books to create an experience for the viewer that is both intimate and panoramic, and strangely nostalgic.
Liz Chalfin
Iteration 5, 2022
photopolymer intaglio, drypoint, beeswax, thread
12.25” x 23”
$2100
Liz Chalfin
Iteration 12, 2022
(unframed) photopolymer intaglio, drypoint, beeswax, thread
12.5” x 23.25”
$1700
THIS STRANGE TIME
My work is grounded in the observation of people in public places. I am interested in social structures, interpersonal relationships, memory and time. I look for relationships of figures to the spaces they occupy and the poetry that is imbedded in their poses and interactions. I am deeply interested in memory, and how we reconstruct our experiences over time. What do we retain clearly? What fades away? How do our experiences change in our minds’ eye over time as we evolve?
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time 12, 2022
collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, sumi ink on wood panel
6″ x 8″
$450
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time 13, 2022
collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, sumi ink on wood panel
6″ x 8″
$450
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time 14, 2022
collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, sumi ink on wood panel
6″ x 8″
$450
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time 15, 2022
collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, sumi ink on wood panel
8″ x 8″
$400
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time 17, 2022
collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, sumi ink on wood panel
8″ x 8″
$400
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time 18, 2022
collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, sumi ink on wood panel
8″ x 8″
$400
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time 20, 2022
collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, acrylic ink, sumi ink on wood panel
8″ x 8″
$400
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time 21, 2022
collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, acrylic ink, sumi ink on wood panel
8″ x 8″
sold
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time 22, 2022
collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, sumi ink on wood panel
8″ x 8″
$400
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time 25, 2022
collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, acrylic ink, sumi ink on wood panel
8″ x 8″
$400
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time 26, 2022
collage with intaglio prints, embossing, beeswax, sumi ink on wood panel
8″ x 10″
$450
ARTISTS’ BOOKS
I began making Artists’ Books as a way to bring closure to a series of prints and to re-contextualize images from the past. I take a body of prints and reconfigure them into books that re-imagine the subject matter and present it in a new format. Long panoramas become stab-bound books; big prints folded into accordions reveal fragmented scenes; waxed Asian papers become translucent. In this way, I change a narrative and create a new viewing experience.
Liz Chalfin
Clarion Call (book), 2022
embossing, sumi ink
closed: 9” x 10-¼” x ¼”
open accordion standing: 9” x 32”
$1700
Liz Chalfin
Clarion Call (book front cover), 2022
Liz Chalfin
Clarion Call (book back cover), 2022
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time (Book 1), 2022
embossing, sumi ink
closed: 5.5” x 5” x ¾”
open accordion standing: 5.5” x 36”
$1500
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time (Book 2), 2022
embossing, sumi ink
closed: : 9” x 10-¼” x ¼”
open accordion standing: 9” x 32”
$2100
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time (Book 2 front cover), 2022
Liz Chalfin
This Strange Time ((Book 2 back cover), 2022
Liz Chalfin grew up in California and was educated in the California public school system from kindergarten through graduate school, except for three years in Dutch schools in Holland as a pre-teen, which had a huge influence on her. Lured into the print shop in college by the music, the community and the technical aspects of the medium, she has never left and continues to find inspiration, community and artistic challenges in the printmaking studio. After years of teaching and museum work, Chalfin founded Zea Mays Printmaking in Florence, Massachusetts in 2000. When not in the print studio, you can usually find her in the garden, digging in the dirt.
Join artist Liz Chalfin for an informal demonstration and conversation about her work in Iterations: 2021-2022. Chalfin’s printmaking-based artwork combines embossing, intaglio printing, drawing, waxing and collage. During this two-hour drop-in event, Liz will demonstrate how she used etched copper plates for blind embossing and multi-layered intaglio printing. While she’s working, she’ll engage in conversation with the audience about the exhibition and her artistic practice.
To see more of Liz Chalfin’s works on paper and her process, visit her website here.