The Gualala Arts Center and the California Society of Printmakers present "Pressing Issues," a show of monotypes, monoprints, and hybrid prints.

This juried exhibition at the beautiful Gualala Arts Center will feature diverse, colorful, and experimental hand-pulled prints, some of which use techniques first popularized by Degas in the late nineteenth century.

The display opens with a public reception on Saturday, July 14, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., and closes on Sunday, August 5, 2007.

All the original, one-of-a-kind images in the display are hand done monotypes, monoprints, and hybrid prints.

A monotype is an image painted, rolled, or transferred onto a blank plate (often of Plexiglas or heavy glass) which is then hand printed on an etching press. The blank plate may be reworked numerous times with the image being reprinted each time until the artist achieves her or his desired result. Such monotypes are often very painterly in the handling and application of color.

Monoprints have a matrix of some sort, which is repeatedly printed in different variations with such changes as coloration, positioning, or addition of diverse elements to distinguish between each print. Sometimes monoprints are signed in this manner: E/V 1 of 10, E/V 2 of 20, etc. This would signify "Edition Variation" No. 1 of 10 prints, No. 2 of 10 prints, etc. The number of variations and overall size of the Edition Variation are up to the artist. Yet each image is unique in its overall effect, even though some common elements may be present throughout the edition.

A hybrid print incorporates some element of either monotype or monoprint, combined with elements of other printmaking techniques such as relief, lithography, serigraph, etc.

The well-respected California Society of Printmakers, now in its 93rd year, is a juried, membership organization, and regularly schedules exhibitions locally, nationally, and internationally. Its diverse members range in age from their early twenties to mid-eighties, are of many ethnic and racial backgrounds, and include artists from both Europe and Asia as well as the entire United States.

Notable members have included such major printmakers as Roy Partridge, one of the earliest California printmakers to achieve national and international acclaim, and more contemporary masters such as John Ihle, Karl Kasten, Shane Weare, Kate Delos, David Smith-Harrison, Sylvia Solochek Waters, William Wolff, Art Hazelwood, and Xavier Viramontes.

Printmaking was the first medium in which art for the middle classes was created by such masters as Rembrandt, Albrecht Durer, and Henri Toulouse De Lautrec. Durer, in fact, used his woodcuts much as we use travelers' checks today, carrying bundles of prints to sell on his journeys through Europe and Italy.

Today members of the California Society of Printmakers continue that tradition, making prints in the mediums of intaglio (etchings, engravings, aquatints, and embossments), relief (wood and linoleum cuts and engravings), lithographs, serigraphs (silk-screening), and monotypes and monoprints (one-of-a-kind). The images on display in this exhibition are innovative, beautiful, and affordable, a rare combination for the art viewer.