Date unknown, 1984: Two west coast printmakers, representing entirely different styles and techniques, will have concurrent one-person exhibitions at The Brooklyn Museum. Gary Bukovnik: Monotypes will feature forty unique prints by the San Francisco-based painter-printmaker, while Taj Worley: Prints 1976 - 1984 will feature fifteen works in a variety of media by the Seattle artist. Both exhibitions will be on view from October 12 through December 2, 1984.
Bukovnik’s subject matter is flowers. He works with equal fluency in watercolor, etching and lithography. In these media, his hallmark is exactitude, intense observation rendered with unsentimental clarity. In the monotype, by definition a looser, more flowing medium, however, he suits the method to the means. What emerges is a painterly, bravura style of sweeping brushwork and deliberately softened edges. The work often assumes a playful character when he manipulates the heavily diluted pigments with his fingers. As a watercolorist, Bukovnik prefers to work with layers of transparent inks.
The exhibition will trace Bukovnik’s stylistic evolution within the monotype medium. From the earliest work (1980) through the work of this year, Bukovnik’s handling of the difficult medium has increased in authority as the works themselves have grown in scale. Many of the recent images employ multiple sheets. A poster and an illustrated catalogue of the exhibition will be available for purchase through The Museum Gallery Shop at The Brooklyn Museum and at Citicorp Center in Manhattan.
Taj Worley’s prints are complex, personal and introspective. Her imagery deals with highly abstracted maps, mazes and gardens, all of which are human attempts to bring sense and order to nature. Her works deal with such problems as connections and disjunctions, visual assonances, and the relation of line to form. Questions are proposed, but left open-ended.
Virtually all forms of printmaking will be represented in the Worley exhibition: etching, lithography, screenprinting, woodcut and monotype, often with two or more media combined in one piece. Ms. Worley sometimes re-cycles her etching plates, setting an early image within an entirely new context, achieving a wholly different emphasis with the varied juxtapositions. Her use of color is subdued and close-keyed, although in the most recent works in the exhibition, her color has become more assertive. Very concerned with craftsmanship, Ms. Worley often makes her own paper.
Both artists have been included in National Print Exhibitions at The Brooklyn Museum, and both are represented in depth in the Museum’s permanent collection.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1971 - 1988. 1984, 021-22.
