New Art Terms. New Art.

Upon my visit to the NEW Burchfield Penney Art Center this weekend, I picked up two new art terms and discovered some local artists whose work made me smile.

Giclée: commonly pronounced "zhee-clay," is an invented name for the process of making fine art prints from a digital source using ink-jet printing The term is often used instead of Inkjet in art shops. The word "giclée," from the French language word "le gicleur" meaning "nozzle," or more specifically "gicler" meaning "to squirt, spurt, or spray." It was coined by Jack Duganne, a printmaker working in the field, to represent any inkjet based digital print used as fine art. The intent of that name was to distinguish commonly known industrial "Iris proofs" from the type of fine art prints artists were producing on those same types of printers. The name was originally applied to fine art prints created on Iris printers in a process invented in the early 1990s but has since come to mean any high quality ink-jet print.

Gouache: Pronounced "Gwash" (rhymes with "squash") (from the Italian guazzo, "water paint, splash") or bodycolor (the term preferred by art historians) is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. Gouache differs from watercolor in that the particles are larger, the ratio of pigment to water is much higher, and an additional, inert, white pigment such as chalk is also present. Like all watermedia, it is diluted with water. (Gum Arabic is also present as a binding agent just like in water color.) This makes gouache heavier and more opaque, with greater reflective qualities.

This piece by Michael Zwack, entitled Abstract Wilderness (oil on wood), caught my eye. I've always been attracted to muted, earth tones. My decor, my clothes, accessories all tend to stay within a natural palette. Once the colors drew me in, I found it notepad worthy because of the image. It's uninhibited and that splash of spontaneity in the bottom corner settles well with me. It's a piece I'd hang in my home. Why? Because it would blend well with my surroundings. It wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. I like my art to be complimentary. Not a bold statement. At least for the art I'd choose to display on my walls. Because at the same time, I also find myself drawn to what may be the extreme opposite: brightly colored pop, modern and contemporary art. Which leads me to the next two pieces I scribbled down in pen...

Okay so I have an obsession with polka dots, so I naturally loved this. Plus the colors, I must admit, are incredibly fun. It's Ani Hoover's Unhinged. Materials: ink, acrylic and spray-paint on Yupo paper. Dimensions: 5' X 30'. Yupo paper is a synthetic plastic paper and it's essential to the development of her paintings as it allows her to add and remove paint from its surface. Also, the slickness of the paper aids in creating lines from drips and shapes from puddles of color. Visit Ani Hoover's website for more drippy, trippy circle fun.

I rounded the corner...and BAM! Wholly Twinkies?! I'm not a Twinkie eater myself, but I found this larger than life painting of them quite appetizing. Up close those little cakes (well big cakes) looked perfectly moist and golden. Bravo A.J. Fries. By the way, the piece is called Crush. Fries has a thing for highlighting the mass consumerism of American popular culture. I have yet to see his oversized paintings of Oreos and Ring Pops. Yum.
Okay, so I don't eat Twinkies now, but I once consumed them as a youth, along with those great Little Debbie snacks too, so yes, there just so happens to be a bit of nostalgia bouncing off that shiny plastic package. Thanks A.J. for making me feel like a kid again.
So there it is. My new nugget of knowledge from this weekend. I've realized, although I've grown out of many things like Barbies, collecting stickers and eating Twinkies, there is something I know I will never outgrown: the desire to learn more and ask the question "why?"

1 comment:

Anonymous said...


- A.J. Fries