August 2009: Eileen Nolan Kressel & Kim Murton

Eileen “Ikie” Nolan Kressel has been creating and printing lyrical linoleum cuts, monotypes and etchings for over 26 years. In her new series of prints, she depicts some of the simple things that matter to her, that reassure with their familiarity and predictability, especially in times of unpredictability. There is an intentional ambiguity. Her aim was to have the viewer uncertain initially of that which the abstraction might represent. Her primary medium is the subtractive linoleum cut, a method that allows for several colors to be pulled from a single block. The print is gradually revealed; the entire piece cannot be known until the final run when the last color is rolled through the press. Her prints are layered with the printmaking process and with the addition of mixed media. By no particular design, prints reflect the joys, whimsies, sadness and mysteries of people and places she have known.

Kim Murton is a ceramic artist with a background of working in the animation industry. She uses the same sensibilities with her clay work as she did with her animation projects and finds that the skills she learned with animation compliment her current clay ventures. A small doodle that was taped to her studio wall gave her the idea for a series of pieces that are "exhaling". “I'm trying to illustrate this in a sculptural way using the conventional cartoon idea of the word bubble. ”She is also continuing to explore heads, figures and animal forms, coiling and pinching terra cotta clay. Murton plays with surface texture, drawing on the form and painting with colored slips and glazes. Color and pattern and the surface of the clay are all important aspects of her work. And of course, humor and wit are ever present.