The latest exhibit in Trisolini Gallery features multiple different types of prints, all following the theme: “rotten.”
On Thursday, from 6-8 p.m., the Trisolini Gallery will hold a reception for "The Rotten Portfolio," an exhibit that features prints by student artists from all over Ohio.
The exhibit is made up of 18 different pieces from four different schools in Ohio, including Ohio University and the Cleveland Institute of Art.
“Rotten is an entirely student driven and produced project,” Melissa Haviland, an associate professor of printmaking, said in an email.
Printmaking uses different materials, such as screens or wood plates, called a matrix, along with ink to make multiple copies of an image, Haviland, who is also the chair of printmaking in the school of art and design, said.
Erica Mirth, a fifth-year senior studying printmaking and an artist featured in the exhibit, said she originally came to Ohio University with the goal of majoring in graphic design, but after taking screen printing and papermaking with Haviland, she switched her major.
“I decided to switch to that because I thought it was a way more authentic way of making things,” said Mirth.
Mirth's piece contains a quote from Edward Munch, a Norwegian painter and printmaker: “From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.” Her work contains four layers and “stems from the addiction epidemic going on.”
Additionally, her print shows a rotting body near the quote along with poppy flowers coming out of roots made of skeleton hands, which are gripping the body.
“We wanted the prints to be focused towards the definition of the word rotten, and the idea arose from the desire to convey our surroundings authentically with an eye for human, ecological impacts and transformations of environments and objects over time,” Mirth said.
She chose to use poppy flowers in her piece because heroin is derived from poppy flowers.
“I think it’s very prevalent right now, just because a lot of people are struggling with it” Mirth said.
Michael Whitehead, an Ohio University alumnus, has a piece in "The Rotten Portfolio" because he is taking a senior printmaking course. He said many printmaking students who do not start off in that field, have a love for the graphic image, which is just a more digital form of printmaking.
“There is something about having a matrix transfer into a print that activates and inspires the creative nerve in the viewer,” Whitehead said. “There is this almost romantic thing about (printmaking).”
Printmaking allows the artist to make an initial design and then make as many copies as they desire, Whitehead said.
“There’s an object that’s created,” Whitehead said. “But it’s not the physical object that the artist worked on.”
