Artists’ Reception: Saturday, April 6, 2-5pm, with mezzotint demonstration by Julie Niskanen from 3-4pm.
Workshop: Saturday April 14, 2-3pm, Printing from Nature with Nina Muys.
April is the perfect month for Natural Connection, an exhibit featuring work of two artists who share a deep sense of wonderment about the natural world, expressing it in different ways. The conversation between Julie Skolozynski's precisely detailed mezzotints with their limited range of colors and Nina Muys' brightly colored intaglio and monoprints reminds us not only of the beauty of nature, but of the differing ways we can celebrate it.
Mezzotint, a centuries-old engraving method invented in Germany, is meticulous and labor intensive. The rich blacks and delicate details of mezzotint provide both perfect drama and soft subtleties, allowing for deep textures and values. Julie exemplifies these qualities through her renderings of objects such as a pod, seed, or nest. Studying these complex forms, often overlooked, gives Julie a way to explore our connection to the divine. Her awe of creation motivates her passion for this subject matter.
Nina Muys works in carborundum intaglio, a non-toxic form of printmaking that mimics traditional etching, but uses cardboard and carborundum powder mixed with acrylic paint. She also uses monoprint, a method that lends her work a painterly quality similar to watercolors. "My work reflects my deep love of nature," Muys says. "The landscapes are the views of my home and studio on the Eastern Shore. My botanical work is of the small miracles that surround us in our gardens in different times of the year."
Julie Niskanen Skoloznski, mother of five, lives in North Carolina. She is active in the art community in the Raleigh area where she teaches college art classes and a variety of studio art classes in her studio, Rooster's Crow Studio. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including four times in the International Mezzotint Festival in Ekaterinburg, Russia. She has an MFA in printmaking from the University of South Dakota.
Nina Muys, born in Austria, is a co-founder of the Washington Printmakers Gallery and her work has been shown locally and internationally for 40 years. Her most recent retrospective was at the Austrian Embassy in 2008, with solo shows at the Washington Printmakers Gallery in 2014 and 2017. Muys' work is in numerous collections including the University of Maryland, the National Institutes of Health, and the Museum of Women in the Arts.
VIDEO by Julie Niskanen Skolozynski, "The Art of the Mezzotint"
Some images by Nina Muys and Julie Niskanen Skolozynski
