Sarah Chircop traces the importance of printmaking by focusing on the current collection of prints being exhibited as part of Printcycle.

The art of printmaking is a vast and fascinating world, one whose roots are ancient and have grown strong and plentiful over the centuries.

Looking through a local lens, Malta’s artistic oeuvre is not one overly dominated by the printing genre, however, a unique story still exists and several significant contributions have been made to our national heritage over the years.

At the dawn of the 20th century, this cycle of printmaking gained particular momentum and continued to increase throughout the era, spilling generously into more recent years.

The Wignacourt Museum in Rabat is currently providing the public with a window into these more contemporary years, where a selection of prints by some of Malta’s leading artists have been assembled for the second edition of Printcycle.

Printcycle is a collective exhibition where 10 Maltese artists have come together and donated some of their prints in aid of the Lifecycle Foundation.

The foundation was created in 1999 to create awareness and generate support for patients suffering from end-stage renal disease.

Each artist has generously contributed some work to collectively create a distinctive display that ranges from luminous and colourful prints to the more traditional and academic, from aquatints, to etchings, drypoints and linocuts, from contemplative nudes to abstract compositions and brooding landscapes.

Personal style and intuition outline every subject and technique, allowing the viewer to briefly witness the exact enormity of this artistic genre.

Whereas the cause for this exhibition is an important and attentive one, the rarity of such an occasion must also be emphasised.

The local understanding of what is a print has perhaps, and excuse the pun, only been scratched on its surface.

In essence, a print is a pictorial image which has been produced by a process that enables it to be multiplied.

It, therefore, requires the previous design along with the manufacture of a printing surface. Most common are wood, metal and stone. However, some of today’s technologies have opened up new doors for new experiments to take place.

Nonetheless, these surfaces are inked and imprinted onto a suitable material.

An artist chooses to express himself through a printmaking method because he feels that he must, because he feels that his subject can only be rendered through a printmaking process and no other.

As the artist goes about his chosen printmaking method with as much fury as care, the final print on paper (or any other surface) is always somewhat a surprise and I believe this uncertainty fascinates as well as terrifies the artist.

The final print is always somewhat a surprise

As one can observe throughout this exhibition, prints also usually contain certain descriptive data that is generally found underneath the printed space. This data gives us the artist’s signature or sometimes monograph as well as the series number identifying the print as one from a number that were carried out within the same run.

An essential feature of prints is precisely this multiplication and it often puzzles people into questioning their originality or authenticity. It must be emphasised that each and every print taken within a particular run is an original work by the artist.

Printmaking provides endless possibilities to be original, simply from the interaction between printing ink and paper which produces aesthetic effects unrealizable in any other way and somewhat different with every print within the same series.

Turning to the body of work on display at the Wignacourt, one will find prints by a spectrum of different artists.

Artist Austin Camilleri gives us an etching and drypoint of his Żieme and this shows us how the artist has explored his subject through the use of different media, both two and three dimensional.

Printmaking is rarely taken as a solitary practice for an artist, it one of many methods through which an artist speaks in the development of a particular theme and subject.

Lino Borg provides the public with a nude figure, highlight-ing the fact that printmaking requires an intelligent and creative artist also well versed in the understanding of the human figure as well as draughtsmanship.

Borg is also an educator who specialises in the teaching of artistic technique and printmaking. Young artist Ryan Falzon gives us two interesting linocuts which comment on Catholic iconography, as well as the unique worship of ex-voti on the island.

Jesmond Vassallo, who has taken his printmaking studies further abroad countless times, adds colour to the exhibit. His aquatint Ir-Ramla F’Diċembru describes the artist’s personal vision of a Maltese landscape.

Further exploring this exhibition, one will also find the work by John Vassallo. His Omaġġ gives us an image of one of Malta’s most important modern artists; Antoine Camilleri, providing homage to him and perhaps his printed corpus of work. My own research for a masters in art history, with particular relation to the printmaking method and modern Maltese artists, confirmed that most of Malta’s major modern artists were interested in print-making at some point in their careers.

The list of names includes Antoine Camilleri, Carmelo Mangion, Emvin Cremona, Anton Inglott and Frank Portelli.

It is not often that such a collection of local prints is on display. In fact, it is very rare to find a collective exhibition completely dedicated to the art of printmaking.

This could be a reason to the general lack of appreciation that unfortunately permeates the local scene.

Hence, this occasion must be taken as an exclusive opportunity to etch deeper those lines of knowledge while contributing to a good cause.

It will do good to remember that some of the world’s greatest works of art are indeed prints.

Printcycle II runs until July 17 at the Wignacourt Museum, Rabat.

www.printcycle2015.yolasite.com