JOHN HEINTZMAN

The Bradley International Print and Drawing Exhibition is the second-longest running juried print and drawing competition in the country. It was established following WWII, where veterans were returning from Europe and the economy was improving. Ernest Freed realized that printmaking was the perfect opportunity for middle class families to afford original works of art. Many military personnel had been exposed to fine art and prints in Europe, and families had expendable income. Affordability and quality artwork allowed everyone in central Illinois to participate in appreciating original works of art. Some of the first Bradley National exhibitions featured masters of printmaking, e.g. Leonard Baskin and Mauricio Lasansky; it soon became noted for the best in contemporary printmaking and drawing throughout the United States.

Art by Cathie Crawford

Every two years it features contemporary graphic artwork and drawings from around the globe. Traditional and non-traditional disciplines, including printmaking, drawing, book arts, and experimental techniques are represented in the show. This year’s Bradley International features 134 works by 109 national and international artists and will be held at four Peoria exhibition spaces including the Peoria Art Guild, on campus at Bradley University at Heuser Art Center Gallery and Hartmann Center Gallery, and at the Peoria Riverfront Museum.

This exhibition takes us through mainstream printmaking and drawing to a place where it piques our curiosity and gives us a bolder approach to appreciating contemporary printmaking and drawing. Included in the 38th Bradley International Print and Drawing Exhibition are central Illinois artists Heather Brammeier, Alex Carmona, Cathie Crawford, David Gregory, and Ryan Horvath.

The 38th Bradley International Print and Drawing Exhibition was juried by Tyanna Buie. Currently, Buie is an Assistant Professor/Section Chair of Printmaking at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.

Drawing

Drawing is fundamental to all other art. It is how artists structure, plan and negotiate space. Drawings can be studies for later paintings or sculptures as well as being an art form on its own.

As an artistic endeavor, drawing is almost as old as humankind. In an instrumental, secondary role, it developed along with the other arts through the ages. Whether preliminary sketches or architectural drawings and designs, drawing as a non-autonomous auxiliary skill was, and, many still believe it to be, subordinate to the other arts. This exhibition proves its independence and creative choices that make it truly 21st century.

In this year’s Bradley International there are outstanding drawings and mixed media works that take enormous risks to create images of historical references, social and cultural concerns, climate crisis, and interpersonal relationships. Coupled with techniques that allow expression to come to life, the Bradley International has demonstrated that artists are bringing to light these issues for our community to consider.

Art by Heather Brammeier

The drawings are varied in their imagery. In Jack Nixon’s drawings of Chicago there are classic architectural references that include stylistic choices with unconventional, original perspectives. Architectural narrations are exaggerated to confront the viewer at Heuser Art Center Gallery.

Drawings of traditional materials give way to works whose strangely disturbing motifs challenge our psyche and blur the borders between the surreal and reality, science and mythology. Heather Brammeier’s drawings at the Peoria Riverfront Museum, inspired by the historical art canon “St. George and the Dragon” depicts a natural flowing of colored pencil lines reflecting Tura, Bordone, Durer and Coleridge, sources from where she composed imagery that “created an exaggerated sense of drama.” Also at this site is Clark Valentine’s ink drawing “Weaving #4,” a commanding graphic work where the artist demands scrutiny by the viewer with his tight methodical and meditative entwining of lines. The resulting visual texture draws the viewers to satisfy their curiosity of what lies beyond the curtain.

Printmaking

Printmaking is an artistic process based on the principle of transferring images from a matrix onto another surface, most often paper or fabric. Traditional printmaking techniques include relief (woodcut or linocut,) etching, engraving, and lithography.

Initially the Bradley National exhibited prints that were rather straight forward and adhered to expectations of mastering the technique and producing a well-rendered image. But in Contemporary printmaking, artists have experimented by broadening their tools and methods of expressing themselves. This has come to include screen printing and other commercial graphic processes, in addition to involving technical media processes to their arsenal to produce their multiples. For example, British artist David Hockney has included faxing artworks and drawing on his iPad; Illinois artist Nicholas Africano used Xerox machines to print his multiples.

Art by Alex Carmona

The 38th Bradley International has ingenious artists mixing methods and messages to create works that command our attention as viewers, and they allow us to explore surfaces that delight the eye. The public will find monumental works that prove that the most formal of print and drawing techniques can confront and intimidate the audience. Once where prints and drawings were seen as an intimate and familiar time for appreciation, now they present with scale that can overwhelm the gallery. At Heuser Art Center Gallery, Paul Breuer’s art quilt “Dancing Dots” incorporates 100 solar plate prints. Alex Carmona’s “King of Cool,” a stunning portrait of Miles Davis, captures the late musician’s soulful tunes as they flow from his hand carved woodcut. Patrons need to allow time to experience this installation.

The Peoria Art Guild’s portion of the exhibition is laden with inspiration from various sources of geography and historical concerns. David Gregory’s prints are the impressions of travel and the daily milieu of native peoples. Artists also use their talent for bringing cultural and historical issues to the forefront. Ryan Horvath’s “Birds of America, European Starling” offers the viewers a delicate and detailed image of the bird whose population trend is declining. We bear witness to the need to protect through art and the artists and to remind us of the fragility of life. Paired with his “Bird Skull, no. 2,” Ryan has made evident the results of what is to come if nothing is done.

Cathie Crawford, a seven-time participant, introduces the audience to her deft ability to hold the viewer’s attention with her confluence of color. “Anima Mundi (Soul of the World) is her contemplation of forces of the natural world, of ephemeral encounters and of the intimacy of place and distance. Her unique style of printing records the process of destruction and the result of creation inherent to reduction woodcut. Full of vibrant color and her ability to present an emotional inlet to a serene world, this print exemplifies all that is perfect in the 38th Bradley International Print and Drawing Exhibition.

All four galleries will be presenting prints and drawings through March 31, 2023. Hours vary at the galleries on Bradley University’s campus. Contact the Peoria Riverfront Museum and The Peoria Art Guild. Admission is free to all galleries.