Printmaker JUSTIN MARABLE

I recently saw some very interesting prints. When I visited the website of Justin Marable I saw many prints with a somewhat haunting subject matter, and a very interesting application of color that seemed to add to the feeling of mystery. I asked Justin for an interview.

“I began by taking art classes throughout middle school and high school. The art program at my rural consolidated school district did not have much to offer. I took as many art classes as I could in high school taking a few independent art courses where I would pretty much work on whatever and my teacher would check in on my progress. It wasn’t until my second year of college though that I really seriously considered art as a career. Using creativity to transform ideas into reality was an intriguing concept for me as I came to an age of awareness of myself and current surroundings. My father was a true artist although he never really did much with it as a career path. He died a few years ago but while living helped bring a new level of awareness to my life. With this newly found self, I felt it necessary to express what I was feeling and realizing about the world.”

“When I first started in the art department at KU I had no real idea of what I wanted. I saw it as an opportunity to explore all media and find my niche. I took photography, sculpture, painting, and printmaking. Out of all these both sculpture and
printmaking were of most interest to me. I enjoyed translating ideas to 3 dimensions and enjoyed the process of construction. I kind of went back and forth for a short while with both sculpture and printmaking but finally decided to dive into the printmaking department. I felt that with printmaking I could express my ideas in greater detail. Serigraphy was my emphasis within the department. I ended up taking 4 or 5 serigraphy courses and doing independent studies with it as well. I could access the photography from which a lot of my prints would derive with this particular medium. The interest in photography came from a course I took at KU, my first actual studio class. I documented my hometown and other rural areas as a social documentary assignment and immediately began realizing things about my environment and past that never would have occurred to me before. So from photography I moved into printmaking which I felt could transfer cohesively as one. I took other print classes of intaglio, lithography, and relief. I was drawn to the methodical precision and close attention to details of printmaking. The accessibility of both serigraphy and relief outside of school has allowed me to continue work in my home studio.”

“I developed my style and continue to develop it through many hours of repetition and finding out what works and what doesn’t . I am constantly in a state of transition from one idea to the next. If I find a method that works best for the creation and expression of a particular piece then I will go with it and manipulate it as I move through the actual act of creating. I discovered that the ideas I was having about land and place not only applied to my hometown but to much of the world. The ideas of land, history, and place that comprise much of my work broaden as they move in various directions simultaneously. It is a constant struggle to keep moving in new directions while still trying to keep focus in that one main
direction where all my ideas culminate into something I don’t know quite yet.”

“I enjoy the openness of the land and the sky. Open space with few distractions. Simple composition of one or two subjects within the picture plain. When I photograph or even search for photographs as references for drawings I look for a specific angle where the subject photographed is most visually interesting and demonstrates the qualities I am specifically looking for. I like shooting low angles diagonally to the sides of structures, where a real sense of monumentality and perspective can be observed. Composition is given great care and consideration as I develop my ideas onto paper or whatever surface I am working on.”

“Just recently I have been working on some new works based from my own drawings and transferred to paper through serigraphy or screen printing. My new drawing/screen prints carry on a common theme of alternative energy and transportation. I am continuing with more drawings and ideas with this same theme. I also have a children’s book in a constant state of progress. It is very far from being complete, but I have the basic story and starting illustrations for the book. I have a few bigger shows coming up here in the summer and fall of 2008 and some new works will inevitably be created for those shows. I have been wanting to create another video, similar to the one that I and a fellow filmmaker made last year, in correlation with one of the shows coming up here next year.”

“I use serigraphic techniques of paper stenciling, blocking out with screen filler, and printing photographs or drawings though a photographic emulsion exposed onto the surface of the silkscreen. I can express the man-made qualities of rural architecture with a photographic stencil technique. Simultaneously, I evoke changing atmosphere within the land and skies by using monoprint and paper stencil techniques. A monoprint is created in a much more improvised way by applying ink through the open screen directly to paper. Monoprints are one of a kind prints. I use several different tools to create various color blends and textures throughout the work.”

“I have set up a small print studio in the basement of our home. By the way, I am married, have a 5 year old daughter, a baby on the way, and my wife and I own our cozy home here in Topeka, Kansas.I have onstructed a light table - by cutting a hole in an old drafting table, setting glass over the hole and placing my Grandma’s old lamp underneath - a printing table with hinge clamps created from an old kitchen table, and inherited an old discarded exposure unit from school. I use a power washer in the corner of the basement next to the drain to blast out coated screens and ink after printing. Squeegees are the tools I use to apply ink through the silkscreen to create image on the paper. I use multiple screens for each color layer and separation that I create. Exacto knives are definitely one of the most widely used tools in my variety of processes.”

“My sources of inspiration are the landscape, particularly that of Kansas and the Midwest, my wife, my daughter, family, art museums, history museums, films, music, home, place, travel, a supportive art community and patrons, other artists who are prolific and doing great things with their abilities. The list goes on and on. I take whatever I can get inspiration from no matter how normal or mundane it may seem.”

“I can’t really name too many off the top of my head. I guess I don’t really look to specific artists for admiration. I have admiration for many works that I have seen whether it be in a well known museum or gallery or a small art center or local gallery in a small town or city. I admire those printmakers and artists whose work I am drawn to. I don’t really have any specific names for you although I have seen some amazing works on paper recently in a variety of places.”

“The most challenging project that I took on recently was an installation that I did for an exhibit at the Olive Gallery in Lawrence, Kansas in November 2006. I proposed to the gallery that I would paint a giant gallery wall size golden map of northeast Kansas on the walls to serve as a background for my framed serigraphs that I was creating. To make a long story short I got in way over my head and ended up working for two days straight painting the gallery walls with help from those who were willing. The prints followed a marked route that I had traveled in a days’ time from Topeka to my hometown of Robinson, Kansas, a little tiny farm village in the countryside of northeast Brown County. I also ended up using little rub on press type letters to mark the names of towns and a little dotted line to show the route traveled. Almost all the work for this exhibit was done within a two month time crunch. It was total insanity on my part. When I commit to an idea I follow through to the very end. The problem is that these grand ideas turn out to be great, big grand amounts of work that I have to push my body and mind to its limits to get through.”

“My first solo exhibition in May 2005 was an unforgettable experience which gave me the confidence and inspiration to move forward with my ideas and own direction. As the opening night progressed I had many people come into the space to see my new work. I had an incredible amount of encouraging feedback and little red dots kept being placed on one print after the other. By the end of the night I had sold almost all of the framed pieces that I had hung in the gallery. I was amazed and totally thrilled that my ideas expressed onto paper could spark such emotion and excitement in others. I left the gallery that night overwhelmed with emotion and inspiration to keep plugging away at all those ideas constantly floating around in and outside my mind. Encouragement to carry on was all I was asking for that night and I received much more than I imagined.”

“I am especially drawn to art that contains content that I can relate to in a certain way. I usually enjoy art that has some kind of representation to it. Whether the representations be landscape, people, animals, architecture, etc. Photographs and especially works on paper whether printmaking, painting, or mixed media I find myself visiting in art museums or galleries. My likes and dislikes are hard to explain. There are so many different elements that make up and define art that trying to pick specific details about what my tastes are is difficult. All I can really say is that I enjoy good art and sometimes depending where you are, good art is hard to find. Small details, some kind of narrative or dialogue, skill and craftsmanship, color, interesting subject matter, an understandable concept, all of these things are different qualities that I notice when viewing a work of art . Subject matter or imagery that I would be drawn to no matter what are prehistoric creatures, old vehicles, old buidings or houses, trees, country roads, highways, rustic well crafted or expressed landscapes that are not cheesy, old barns, , animals, work dealing with place, home, rural realities, urban realities, any work that sparks emotion or ideas. I enjoy art that is organized but in a haphazard way, Rauschenberg’s work for example. There you go, there is a name. I saw an exhibition of his combine paintings at the Metropolitian in New York last year. It was incredible. Another exhibition that stands out in my mind was an exhibition in NYC at the MOMA of Jeff Wall’s giant wall size slide photography. His photographs are so monumental and totally draw you into each theatrical scene that stands motionless before you. All the photos are backlit in huge light boxes so the colors are reallly intensified. I dislike bad landscape painting, paintings you would ind in a small tourist town in the midst of kitschy little antique and souvenir shops. I enjoy work that is edgy and contains substance, but not too strange. Although from time to time I do enjoy that absurdityand stangeness that I can’t quite rap my head around. Like this show that I saw in a Chelsea art gallery earlier this year. I walked into the space and there were these giant ceramic vessels, some were as tall as me. I could see into some of them but others I had to stand on the tip of my toes. I was surprised and pretty frightened by what I saw in each. There were taxidermy animals ranging from small birds and bats to whole deer and goats. Each vessel had a different animal. This was an exhibit that contained some of that bizarre, strange, and absurd quality that challenged and confused me a little.”

Justin, I appreciate your words on your prints and the creative process of printmaking.

- Giselle Borzov