The 12th annual California Centered: Printmaking Exhibition held its opening reception last Saturday.

The exhibit has works from Stan State students Ariyanna Martinez (Senior, Bachelor of the Arts), and Christopher Benson (Senior, Bachelor of Fine Arts), and also features works from staff members Andrew Cain (Instructional Support Technician for the Art Department) and Martin Azevedo (Assistant Professor of Graphic Art).

The exhibit is located in Merced at the Multicultural Arts Center, and will be up until May 22. There are pieces that are for sale and the past winners of the exhibit are located upstairs within the center. There is also featured work by Lynn Curtis and Joseph Tipay.

The printmaking processes that are featured are from ancient techniques such as relief to more modern techniques such as ink jet printing.

“Printmaking is very much a nonconformist medium… besides the print itself, printmaking is more about community than any other medium. Many processes depend on a heavy press that serves as a beacon for other artists to come and print their images, creating a dialogue between artists to work together and influence each other,” Benson said.

Since there are different printmaking processes, Martinez believed that the they require multiple attempts to get it right. 

“Printmaking really allows a significant amount of experimentation, not only with the different forms of printmaking, but also during the process of making a block or plate,” Martinez said.

 Cain used a modern technique, like 3D printing for his “Everyone’s Replaceable” piece.

“With ’Everyone’s Replaceable’ the piece itself is about cloning someone…, and the thought of creating more people exactly the same. It’s using the reproductive abilities of printmaking and 3D printing as the drive behind the everyone’s replaceable theme,” Cain said.

The pieces that were featured from our students and staff all had different meaning and stories.

Benson’s pieces “Ocotillo” and “Remnants 1” have a desert theme with “Ocotillo” focusing on his childhood.

“Ocotillo is a plant that I remember from my childhood. My parents took my sister and I to the Anza Borrego Desert State Park when we were little. These plants towered over my sister and I, planting an impression on how I viewed them,” Benson said. “The image below on the print refers to a ceramic crucible cup that held water. The ocotillo plant drinks the water for nourishment. The writing on the print stems from mankind’s lust for gold.”

With “Remnants 1”, Benson used the desert as a metaphor to explain human interaction within the world.

“‘Remnants 1’ builds on this desert narrative with the depiction of two mounds that face the viewer. These mounds were intended to be burial sites but over time were broken into,” Benson said. “A ventilation duct and its core unit loom above the mounds as a reminder of human expansion and corporate manifest destiny. The arrows inside the unit refers to the flow of particles commonly seen in science textbooks and codices.” 

Martinez’s piece ”Miss May” was motivated by “Women’s freckles, hair, and nature. I’m drawn to rare features, and find them to be extremely beautiful. As for the flowers, I’ve always had a major appreciation for nature, and I think in this day bad age many people don’t feel the same,” Martinez said. “So by combining the natural element to these rare features in a human I’m trying to regenerate that relationship between nature and humans.”

Cain drew his piece, ‘Everyone’s Replaceable’ to show that each person is irreplaceable.

“There was someone who once told me that everyone’s replaceable and I find that to be a very untrue statement. I feel like everyone’s unique and special. So it was kinda like a dig at that person for saying that. I use Captain America as a self portrait of myself that reoccurs in my work,” Cain said.