Michael Marshall is not able to come home for the small group show “Intimate” that includes five of his prints and opens at the Atrium Gallery, 4814 Washington Ave., on Friday, March 21. The artist is stranded on the Big Island, where he chairs the Art Department at the University of Hawaii – Hilo.
“This morning, I looked out at the mountain and saw the remains of snow from the weekend storm,” Marshall said by phone on Friday. “We’ve had our share of what we call winter weather. For here, we call it cold.”
The average low temperature for Hilo in March is in the mid-60s. He is not to be pitied. But the personable St. Louis native will certainly be missed when Atrium opens its doors to his five prints and other “Intimate” work by Claudia deMonte, Julia Fernandez-Pol, Annette Morriss, Steven Sorman, Katy Stone and Elizabeth Thach.
Marshall’s five pieces are smaller mono print compositions, about 16 by 20 inches framed, each in the shape of a diamond. They are from a suite of prints he made for the Honolulu Printmakers 85th Annual Exhibition last year, which called for artists to incorporate the number 85 in their submissions.
The arbitrary requirement of incorporating that number into his work inspired Marshall to vary the shape of his pieces and make prints from a diamond-shaped plate. “Using the text was already a challenge,” Marshall said, “so I thought I might as well shake up my composition. The diamond forced me to think of compositional relationships in a different way.”
Honolulu Printmakers accepted one of Marshall’s diamond prints in its exhibition and accepted a second print for a Salon des Refusés, an “exhibition of rejects” that were passed over for the exhibition proper but curated into a local gallery as a sidebar show. Five more of these 85-themed diamond-shaped prints from this suite are now headed for St. Louis.
“I tried to use 85 as a springboard, but the viewer may not be able to see 85, the number or text, at all,” Marshall said. “If you look hard, you may be able to see fragments of the number.”
The work is abstract, giving pleasure through the interplay of color, figure and texture. Punning on the diamond shape, perhaps, Marshall called these prints “gem-like.”
“Because of the smaller scale, there is a delicacy that gets lost in larger, more physical work,” Marshall said. “It’s the nature of these intaglio prints that you have to see them personally to appreciate the subtleties.”
While St. Louis art enthusiasts are personally viewing Marshall’s prints, he will be home on the Big Island, working on paintings and prints in one of the studios at the Art Department he chairs – or doing the more mundane administrative work required of his position. He hopes to return to St. Louis and other cities on the mainland next year.
He said, “I hope next summer I’ll be able to do some exhibitions and residencies outside of Hawaii.”
“Intimate” opens at the Atrium Gallery, 4814 Washington Ave., on Friday, March 21 with a reception from 6-8 p.m. and runs through May 10. Visit www.atriumgallery.net.
