Mendacia Ridicula (and summer news)

When I created my etching based on Goltzius’ Phaethon in 2011, little did I realize that I would continue this theme over the years and appropriate, one by one, and for my own nefarious purposes, each of his four engravings from the series known as The Four Disgracers. In keeping with Goltzius, who used fallen figures from classical Greek myths to disparage the arrogance of Phillip II of Spain, who was trying to subjugate the Netherlands at the time, I have utilized his images (which were actually based on the original paintings of another artist, but certainly stand on their own merits) to reflect on some of our current curses of humanity.

The Four Disgracers
Hendrick Goltzius

So, the fourth work from Goltzius’ series representing the fall of Ixion has been completed. It is titled MENDACIA RIDICULA (the Wheel of Ixion), and is based on the most complex and detailed of his four engravings. The impetus for creating this final work really came from my discovery of the translation into English of the Latin text encircling the original image. Aside from tweaking the rather clumsy translation and adding one detail at the end, my text pretty much follows the original, word for word. Lamentably, the muse Clio has the unfortunate habit of repeating herself, but her ashcan is ready and waiting. And as regard to the demand for civility in public discourse by the current dominant political organization enabling insanity, I can only reply; “Mendacia Ridicula”.

MENDACIA RIDICULA (the Wheel of Ixion)

As we all know, Ixion was redeemed and invited up to Olympus by Zeus after committing some rather unsavory crimes against his mortal brethren. In keeping with his character, once among the gods, he lusted after Zeus’s wife, Hera, and when Zeus realized this, he created a “dark (Stormy?) cloud” in the likeness of Hera, with whom Ixion proceeded to have intercourse. Needless to say, when he subsequently boasted about his supposed conquest, he was punished (tied to the spinning wheel of Ixion for eternity). However, the sexual encounter was unprotected, and depending on your preference of myth, the dark cloud (Nephele) either gave birth to the race of Centaurs, or to a deplorable individual who was responsible for fathering them. (I’ll leave it to your imagination as to how that was accomplished). In spite of Uncle Walt’s bucolic version, it’s doubtful that the ancient Greeks took this as a good thing.

MENDACIA RIDICULA (the Wheel of Ixion) is an etching, 6” x 6”, printed on Van Gelder Simili Japon paper in an edition of 30. In addition to offering it for purchase at the price of $400.00, I am making the set of four (The Four Destructors; The Four Deplorables?—we’ll see) available for $1425.00, which is a discount of 10 % from the full price of $1580.00.

The other etchings in this set are:

Safe, Clean, Cheap–Phaethon in the 21st Century 

Too Close to the Sun

Running on Empty

Summer News:

This year I have received my second purchase award from the 31st McNeese Works on Paper Exhibition, the third Place Award from the Texas National 2018 Competition (1000 entries!), and my work “A Ticket to Ride…” was acquired by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. In August I will be showing work in “Stand Out Prints” at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking (900 entries!) and “Pressing Matters” at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art. Stay tuned for info about Fall Open Studios and the Art for Aids Auction (Das Narrenschiff).

Washington Post Article

Here is a copy of the Washington Post Article by Mark Jenkins containing a review of my solo exhibit at the Washington Printmakers Gallery this last July. Stay tuned for more information on this year’s Open studio.

Here’s a review by Mark Jenkins

in the July 21st Washington Post:

David Avery’s “Tempestuous Muse,” on view at Washington Printmakers Gallery. (David Avery/Washington Printmakers Gallery)

“As a maker of hand-etched prints, David Avery is something of an antiquarian. He also inserts text – sometimes in Latin – into his exquisitely detailed work. So, of course, the San Francisco artist centered his display at Washington Printmakers Gallery on a print titled “Obeliscolychny.” It’s a word he allows is “obscure and rarely used,” in an essay accompanying the show, “Pursuing Invisible Reflections.”
The term refers to a lighthouse, which in Avery’s depiction is a spindly stack of many kinds of buildings, including monument, windmill and tumbledown shack. Here as in the other prints, the look and some of the content is closer to Albrecht Durer than any contemporary artist.
Yet the classic imagery is wittily updated. Avery interjects Renaissance-style intimations of mortality and damnation into everyday scenes: A skeleton rides a stick horse whose head is a equine skull, or a woman jogs with a stroller and a dog, accompanied by Death (riding a bicycle) and a demon. Such mash-ups would be only mildly amusing if the artist didn’t so successfully emulate centuries-old motifs and methods. Indeed, Avery is so adept that viewers in bygone eras might have surmised that he’d sold his soul to the devil.

Pursuing Invisible Reflections: The Etchings of David Avery On view through July 30 at Washington Printmakers Gallery, 1641 Wisconsin Ave. NW. 202-669-1497washingtonprintmakers.com.

Year of the Rooster

Recently I was interviewed by Cy Musiker for the KQED Arts section on their web page as part of his review of a show at the Juan Fuentes Gallery  titled “Creation & Resistance: Printmaking in Dark Times”. The piece in question, “Year of the Rooster” was not reproduced in the article (!), so here it is. The Latin on the scroll reads: “The World Wishes to be Deceived” (Thank you, James Branch Cabell), which is really what the piece is about, more than just Trump per se. You can see the article here: https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2017/03/21/political-prints-pull-no-punches-at-juan-r-fuentes-gallery/ .

You can also visit the exhibit at the gallery at Accion Latina at 2958 24th Street (between Harrison and Alabama), Tues through Sat, 11 AM to 5PM through April 7th.

Year of the Rooster (2?x 2?) etching with watercolor

Running on Empty

As promised, a new etching based on the engraving Tantalus from the 16th century by Hendrick Goltzius has been completed this summer, and is titled Running on Empty. This is the third in a series of four, and who knows when the fourth will be done, as I adamantly refuse to entertain the possibility of ever doing another one of these again each time a new one is completed.

As you will remember (!), Tantalus, a mortal fathered by Zeus, had, among his other indiscretions towards the gods, decided to kill, dismember, and boil is son Pelops, and serve him at a banquet for the inhabitants of Mt. Olympus, to test whether they were actually omniscient. It was a mistake. They were.

His punishment was to be made to stand in a pool of water that receded every time he tried to satisfy his thirst, and to stand under a tree that pulled away its branches whenever he tried to pluck any fruit. (In ancient Greece, cannibalism and the killing of kin were considered to be among the worst atrocities one could commit). Of course, I have replaced the fruit tree with a gas pump nozzle (see lower right). Does the denial of science in the name of commerce render the balance of nature oblivious to the cannibalization of our children’s future?

See image and info on my website: http://www.davidavery.net/prints/empty.html

This spring I had a very successful exhibition at the Sarratt Gallery at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and will once again be participating in San Francisco Open Studios at John Gruenwald Press, which will take place on the second weekend, October 22nd and 23rd. Stay tuned for more information.

Sarratt Gallery
Running on Empty

Open Studios 2015

I hope that you  will be able to make time in your Busy Schedules to visit me on the occasion of this year’s San Francisco Open Studios at which, in addition to exhibiting with four other accomplished printmakers (see below), I will be premiering The Coming of the Cocklicranes or His Kingdom Restored, a limited edition artist book featuring four etchings by the same name (now taking pre-publication orders!). Of course, as you have come to know and expect, a vast sampling of those pieces of paper smashed into polished copper plates which have been defaced with scratches and rudimentary chemistry will also be on display. Refreshments will be served.
WHERE–Gruenwald Press, 1663 Mission Street, San Francisco (entrance on Plum Street), identified with a prominent festively colored yellow sign reading “Gruenwald Press”. See map link for the secret entrance on “Plum Street“. http://mapq.st/1LAdN7Q
WHEN–October 31 to November 1, 11 AM to 6 PM
Reception (party!) October 30, 5:30 to 8:30 PM
WHO--Kathy Aoki, David Avery, Jonathan Barcan, Susan Belau, John Gruenwald
Please Note: there is regrettably a flight of stairs which has to be negotiated in order to reach the studio, HOWEVER, if needed, the freight elevator is easily accessible and can be utilized by calling 415-734-0376 and waiting patiently…

I hope to see you the weekend of the 31st.
detail: The Coming of the Cocklicranes No. 4

New Work 2015

The harbingers of Autumn include the publication of five new prints; a series of four etchings entitled The Coming of the Cocklicranes (view here), as well as the just recently completed Runner (Mom, Death and Devil), based on the (you guessed it) famous Durer engraving of a similar name.  In addition, there is the upcoming publication of a new artist book based on the aforementioned series of four etchings, which is anticipated to be ready for my 2015 Open Studio exhibition. This year I will be showing at the John Gruenwald Studio the weekend of Oct. 31st, along with four other accomplished and varied printmakers. More information will be forthcoming as the date approaches.

This year has seen a solo exhibit at the New Grounds Gallery in New Mexico, a three person show at the Sandra Lee Gallery in San Francisco, as well as prints included in an exhibit at the Venice Biennale, the Child’s Gallery in Boston, and several competitions with six awards and honorable mentions.

Runner (Mom, Death and Devil)

The Book

Opened to Title Page

OBELISCOLYCHNY —an appellation that intoxicates the viewer with the potentials of unknown narratives, filled with mysterious possibilities leading to…what exactly? Obelisk-shaped lighthouses? Spit-lanterns wearing high-crown’d hats? A windmill inhabited by a cuckoo clock? Imagine these things and more, with the publication of the artist’s book, Obeliscolychny, featuring two etchings by David Avery and excerpts from Rabelais and Jarry connected with the abovementioned term.

Front
Inside flaps
Open

OBELISCOLYCHNY

OBELISCOLYCHNY

Oxford English Dictionary: 

Obeliscolychny, n.

Etymology: <Middle French obeliscolychnie (Rabelais, 1548-52) <ancient Greek ??????????????? a spit used (by soldiers) as a lamp-holder < ????????? OBELISK n. + ??????? lamp-stand (see LYCHNIDIATE adj.)

Obs. rare. 

A lighthouse: a lamp-bearer.

 

detail, Obeliscolychny

The final state my etching Obeliscolychny is now completed and can be seen on my website. It will ultimately become the visual component of a limited edition artist’s book that will attempt to bring together the image with the texts from which the ideas that inspired it were derived.

“Obeliscolychny?” you may be tempted to ask.

And with good reason. Arguably one of the most obscure and rarely used terms to be found in literature (or anywhere else), but with, perhaps, undue influence relative to its obscurity, obeliscolychny was invented/appropriated by Francois Rabelais (@1483-1553) and used in books IV and V of his sprawling tales of Gargantua and Pantagruel. Possibly derived from Aristotle’s Politics, which used it to describe a kind of spit used by soldiers to hang lamps on as a metaphor for…well, something or other, it acquired the meaning somewhere along the way of a lighthouse in the form of an obelisk.

Centuries later, Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), poet, playwright, critic, puppeteer, and subverter of objective reality, discovered the word while reading Rabelais and became enamored with it, using it (pataphysically, of course) in several of his novels. That these works tend to be as convoluted and recondite as the origins of obeliscolychny itself is part of what provides grist for the mill of this project.

We are expecting the book to be completed soon, and are aiming for an opening event in mid July, so please stay tuned. Below are listed my most recent exhibitions.

Purchase Award, Ink, Press, Repeat 2013; 1/21 to 2/15/2013, Ben Shahn Center for the Visual Arts, William Patterson University, Wayne, NJ (Jacob Lewis—Pace Prints Chelsea).

Lindquist  Purchase Award, 2013 Delta National Small Prints Exhibition; 1/17 to 2/20/2013, Bradbury Gallery, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, AR.     (Anne Coffin-IPCNY).

Man, Machine and Nature; 1/17 to 3/1/2013, LA Print Space, Los Angeles, CA.

New Prints 2012; 2/1 to 3/9/2013, Visual arts Center, University of Texas at Austin, TX.

34th Bradley International Print and Drawing Exhibition; 3/9/13 to 4/20/13, Bradley University Galleries, Peoria, Il. (Stephen Goddard—Senior Curator, University of Kansas Kress Foundation).

24th National Drawing and Print Competitive Exhibition; 4/2 to 2/26/13, Gormley Gallery, Notre Dame of Maryland University, Baltimore, MD. (Amy Cavanaogh Royce).

26th Annual McNeese National Works on Paper Exhibition; 3/21 to 5/9/2013,  Ambercrombie Gallery, Lake Charles, LA. (Claudia  Schmuckli).

The New York Society of Etchers 3rd National Exhibition of Intaglio Prints; 5/20 to  6/7/2013, The National Arts Club, NY, NY. (Dr. Leonard Moss and Dr. Muriel Moss).

International Print Center New York

If you are in the New York area this October, I will be exhibiting two prints in the New Prints 2012/Autumn show at the IPCNY Gallery, located at 508 West 26th Street, 5th Floor. The opening reception is Tuesday, October 30, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.

Out of over 2600 submissions, 36 prints were selected for this exhibit, and two of them are mine: A Ticket to Ride, and Safe, Clean, Cheap–Phaethon in the 21st Century. Both of these works can be seen on my website.

Obeliscolychny and upcoming shows

Hopefully, if you have gotten this far, you have visited my updated website. Almost all of the work I have produced to date is now available for your perusal in glorious black and white, including my most recent etching, Abstracting the Quintessence. Don’t forget my dealers, Annex galleries, Jane Haslem Gallery and Warnock Fine Arts, whose sites can be found on my links page.

 This summer I am becoming involved in a new book project, entitled Obeliscolychny. It will involve an etching 28 inches by 5 inches which will be utilized as a vertical accordion foldout in the book, as well as being editioned as a separate stand alone print.

 “Obeliscolychny?” you may ask.

Ostensibly, “a lighthouse in the shape of an obelisk”.  —Perhaps.  An ancient Greek word favored by Rabelais and Alfred Jarry and used in their work. Twice. For both of them. Possibly originated with Aristotle, to describe a kind of spit to hang lamps on. Described in the Oxford English Dictionary as “rare, obsolete”.  Hmm. Well, I’m running with the obelisk-light house thing, with letterpress text by the above-mentioned writers. And since it is to be a lighthouse in the shape of an obelisk, it must also be a windmill. You can see the kind of direction this thing could be going in…

 I will post images of the sections I am working on as they develop (28 inches is a lot for me), so please check back occasionally if you are curious as to what could possibly be going on.

  Current and upcoming shows include:

Printhouston: NEXT; June 2 to 26, 2012, Special Events Gallery, Houston, TX. www.printmattershouston.org.

Inked Surfaces; August 27 to Sept. 28, 2012, Diablo Valley College Art Gallery, Pleasent Hill, CA.

Global Matrix III (traveling show); August 9 to October 5, 2012, Clara M. Eagle Gallery, Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky. www.cla.purdue.edu/galleries.