Printmaking is a loose term for a variety of techniques in which a plate or some other type of original is used to make multiple images. It’s been used for centuries as a way to broadcast stories and ideas: Think medieval engraved manuscripts, etchings in books, political posters.
Norwich artist Sue Schiller has this legacy in mind when creating her own prints.
“I like figuring out communication and using different ways of communicating in my work,” she said in an interview. From musical composition to whale calls, different modes of communication are a theme that frequently appear in Schiller’s figurative and abstract prints.
A retrospective of Schiller’s work at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction enables viewers to see the development of her technique, as well as the various themes she has explored throughout the decades. The works are hung along the corridor as well as within the print studio.
One of the first images one encounters is a small woodcut simply titled Self Portrait from 1972 when Schiller was a self-professed hippie. The young artist is depicted seated on a patterned sofa, head in hand. She appears tired, perhaps from a marathon of art making.
The image demonstrates Schiller’s superior draftsmanship and her dexterity as a printmaker. There’s surprising variety in the types of marks and lines used to delineate the various surfaces in the image: each is given a slightly different texture, from the grainy red wall to the billowing blouse to the tightly crosshatched skirt. The image was created while Schiller was a student at the National Academy of Art in New York, where she absorbed the lessons of the master printmaker Vijay Kumar.
Later in her career, Schiller was moved to make a series based on a study that found in some parts of the world, whales’ communication with each other has been compromised by the sonar used in military submarines. In addition to more traditional prints (one of which is on view) the series includes Sonar vs Sonar III (2011), a relief composed of a selection of printed papers that are formed into a three dimensional collage that extends out several inches from the wall.
Schiller wrote of this technique in her artist statement, “I do this either by extreme embossment or by constructing a kind of frieze — always building it entirely with printed paper. This adds elements of shadows and multiple points of view.” The concentric circles imply the dueling sets of sonar waves colliding with each other beneath the ocean. The notion of machines of war interrupting the calls of the world’s largest mammals is a powerful one.
Schiller’s work reached its most political dimension in Family Torn Apart (2018), a family portrait torn into three pieces, representing the separation of families of immigrants as they were detained while attempting to enter the U.S. Those events, compounded by the isolation during lockdown have deepened Schiller’s affection for her own family, and has imparted an even deeper resonance to such works.
“When I look at this work, I’m reminded of my own family and how we can now get together … but also of how difficult it is for others to be together,” she said.
A sense of longing and apartness is echoed in Forgetting (2009). In this sugarlift print, four identical silhouettes of an androgynous human torso appear in a frieze-like row. Schiller used the “ghost” technique whereby the artist doesn’t re-ink the plate between impressions so that each successive image becomes fainter. In this instance, the technique evokes a sense of fading memories as they unfold through time.
As a counterpoint to this, Conversation II (2009) is an abstract representation of forms that appear to be talking to one another. Between the two stone-like shapes are a series of bulbous forms that recall speech bubbles. The work could be read as a simple meditation on sharing ideas, but on another level, it seems to be a commentary on the act of art-making itself.
“Sometimes I make a mark that then requires me to rethink the entire piece,” Schiller said, motioning to Girl with Red Hair (2017), a lively little figure study of a reclining woman. “I decided to give her red nails, but then needed to carry red elsewhere. … I had this yarn which then became her hair.” The woman in the image has a mane of crimson hair that echoes her nails and bits of red throughout the image. The piece is idiosyncratic in the best sense of the word. It’s a play on Cubism and includes mixed media layers atop the printed image. The subject matter is a riff on the long tradition of the female figure as an object in Western art history.
Here, and throughout the exhibition, Schiller uses her subject as an occasion to improvise with materials while finding levity and joy in the act of making.
“Sue Schiller: A Retrospective” is on view at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction through Aug. 22. There will be a public reception on from 5 to 7 p.m. on Friday as part of White River Junction’s First Friday celebrations.
Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays or by chance or appointment. For inquiries call 802-295-5901 or email www.tworiversprintmakingstudio@gmail.com
Eric Sutphin is a freelance writer. He lives in Plainfield.