industrial art — Iskra Fine Art

Summer Print Sale!

July 27, 2017 by Iskra Leave a Comment

“The Crimson Monarch,” 15.5 x 15.5 ” 1/20, available during the Summer Print Sale

I have been super busy this summer finishing the body of work for Industrial Strength, a three-woman show opening at SAM Gallery on Wednesday September 13th. Something about wrapping up a set of work and being “done” just seems to lead to more ideas. I keep coming back to The Floating World as a source of inspiration, and each time I find something new. Sometimes all I see is the sky and the water, and sometimes I see the shore, the anchor and the fine tethers that keep one from floating away. The great ship the Crimson Monarch was moored beneath the Elliott Bay grain elevators a few months ago. By May it had rained for eight months and on the first sunny Sunday of the year I could not wait to get out to the waterfront with my camera. I fell madly in love with this ship and the way it faced the sun, owning the bay. I use real names in my ship portraits. If you want to kick back with a beverage that puts you in a nautical frame of mind and a pair of binoculars, you can follow the Crimson Monarch on shipspotting.com. [Read more…]

Paths to Intuition in Digital Printmaking

June 13, 2017 by Iskra 1 Comment

intuitive composition Iskra Fine Art — Morning pages digital composition practice

The big puzzle in my studio life right now is how to maintain access to intuition while working in the highly technological medium of digital print making. As someone coming from traditional printmaking, and particularly monoprint, I prize the excitement of accidents and transformations not entirely in my control. And the things I look at obsessively, like the sides of dumpsters and the backs of stop signs, are surfaces of completely unintentional beauty. To get this feeling of things — to get the reality, more importantly — it’s essential to embed in the workflow some wild cards. The images I have been doing recently are taking radical new turns, and it’s because I have been taking risks and learning how to embrace chaos.

What is Digital Printmaking?

First, for those reading who may think of digital printmaking as simply scanning a painting and printing it from a computer, or using a mouse or stylus to draw, a brief explanation. [Read more…]

Industrial Silence | (And Save the Date!) #MakeAmericaCreateAgain at CoCA

March 20, 2017 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Industrial Light Photograph by Iskra Johnson — Industrial Silence, © Iskra Johnson

Industrial silence is a three part harmony of dripping rust, heavy metal and the slanting light of late afternoon. If you listen carefully you can hear walls corrugating and wire mapping a path through the milky green of ancient skylights. In the distance, there is the hum of large trucks idling, and close up the interrogating roar of generators programmed to shock a tourist out of reverie. There is always the cantor and the choir of crows and gulls, one shrieking, one mewling, and sometimes thin coils of rubber poised like snakes. Most of the written words are warnings. Wear your steel toe boots, don’t touch, don’t trespass, turn this crank to the left and then up, do not drink what is in this barrel, although I always hope somewhere in the sans serif commands I will find an anthemic “raise high the roofbeam carpenters!”

Every silence is different, but each one reminds me of the other, so as I walk through train yards and factories on Sundays when everyone is gone I also think of Berlin, [Read more…]

“The Shipping Lanes,” or, The Longshoreman Strike Illustrated

February 24, 2015 by Iskra 1 Comment

The-Shipping-Lanes-Print-Iskra — “The Shipping Lanes” limited edition archival pigment print, 25″ x 25″ © Iskra Johnson

Last weekend I took a sun-blown walk along the waterfront, down to the Chittenden Locks and back up along Golden Gardens. I returned with over a hundred new photographs of the northern bay and renewed excitement about seascapes as a subject. Along the way I passed through the living rooms of those who sleep without doors. There is no bookcase, no lamp, but sometimes a bright red sleeping bag, some boots and a pillow. Perhaps the painted walls are [Read more…]

New Images About the Alaska Way Viaduct: Understory & Overstory

March 16, 2014 by Iskra 1 Comment

I have just completed several of the final new images for the upcoming “Excavations” show at Zeitgeist. One portion of the show will be a series of 10″ x 10″ transfer prints devoted to the ongoing saga of the Alaska Way viaduct. The images are created from my photographs of the viaduct layered with painted and drawn surfaces made in response. This is a place filled with industrial strength beauty: loud, dirty, sometimes hazardous but always provoking.

I have been photographing the viaduct for at least 25 years, and this iconic structure is an enduring object of affliction. Many of the collages are based on recent cellphone photos taken from a moving car. This is the glimpse, the rapture of the vista, the overstory. But this one, the most recent piece, uses as its backdrop an analog photograph I took over 20 years ago when the train tunnel could still be seen. I stood for hours one long gilded afternoon waiting for trains, and documented the graffiti as it changed color in the refracted sunlight of the bay. Now that tunnel is invisible, walled in behind condominiums. This is the understory. As with all of the images in this series reality has been subtly collaged and reconstructed.

Banksy Was Not Here: Street Buddha Manifestation, Transfer print, © Iskra Johnson

Understory 1, Saturday 1 PM, Transferprint, © Iskra Johnson

Meanwhile, although the cracks are getting larger we still drive. Best view of the sky anywhere:

Drive-By In Orange: The Viaduct — Drive-By In Orange, Transferprint, © Iskra Johnson

Each transfer print originates from the same image, but the transfer process creates a unique monoprint each time, with different surface qualities and subtle variations in color. I often make only one print of an image, but in some cases the variations possible are too interesting to pass up. This particular print has several variants, as I experimented with the grain of the ink and application of the transfer medium. In this version I “wiped” the paper as I would a zinc plate, to get the organic washed quality of the sky.

Mark your calendar for the opening, First Thursday April 3rd, 6-8 at Zeitgeist. A reminder will come closer to the date.