My silkscreen poster “Bombs Not Bread“, was directly influenced by the works of the great Mexican satirical printmaker, José Guadalupe Posada, as well as the Chicano arts movement of the late 60s and early 70s. Created in 1983 as a Day of the Dead poster, my artwork depicts a military “calaca” (Mexican-Chicano slang for skeleton), along with text that serves…
War: Dance of Death in Black, White, and Blood Red All Over, is the name of a timely exhibition of woodcuts shown at the A Shenere Velt Gallery in Los Angeles. Printmaker Kurt Brian Webb’s blunt, no-nonsense graphic style makes clear an unequivocal opposition to the forces of war and militarism through prints that are at once honest, sardonic, and…
I cannot recommend highly enough, Pressed in Time: American Prints 1905-1950, the current exhibit at The Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Made up of 163 prints created by 82 artists during the first half of the 20th century, the show encapsulates American art as it was before the ascendancy of abstraction; an epoch when realism, meaning, compassion and technical…
The American painter, printmaker and sculptor, Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) once said “Art is content, or it is nothing.” As a teenage artist searching for role models, I discovered Baskin in the late 60’s – and I took his words to heart. A figurative realist shaped by the earthshaking events of the 1930’s, Baskin would first be recognized for his sculptures,…
Whatever Happened To The Future! – Silkscreen print. Vallen 1980. In 1980 I created a silkscreen print that captured the apprehension many were feeling at the time, the general malaise over the state of society and a fear that atomic war with the Soviet Union was imminent. My print, Whatever Happened To The Future!, was a street poster that became…
Los Angeles artist and printmaker John Carr organized the Yo! What Happened To Peace? traveling exhibit 2 years ago. The exhibit is a collection of contemporary anti-war prints “designed to spread the message of non-violence.” The exhibit was shown in Boston and New York during the Democratic and Republican conventions, and is now traveling overseas. What makes the exhibit unusual…
