Printing

Irlandese con currach

| Irma Irsara

Irlandese con currach
(Irish with currach) 1990

A companion piece to ‘Verso l’isola di Murano‘, ‘Irlandese con currach’ uses a precise palate of earthy colours to comment on ideas of tradition and survival linked to landscape.

Both pieces have similarities in theme but they are also preoccupied with captured light. In this piece, the fresh strong green that reflects back the light is particularly important and represents a response to an area with a unique visual identity.

Details:

Price £70 (multiple) offered as part of #artistsupportpledge initiative.

unframed price

Limited edition 2 plate etching
Aquatint, sugar-lift, aquaforte, rolled colour

2/50 – number 2 of an edition of 50

Paper: Somerset White Texture 300gsm

Print size: H 15 cm x W 15 cm
Paper size: H 25.5 cm x W 25 cm

Suggested framed dimensions:
H 31 x W 31 cm (min)

Available at:
http://irmairsara.bigcartel.com/product/irlandese-con-curraghs

Artist info:
https://irmairsara.com/about.htm

I’ll be offering further work for £200 or under and will pledge to use 20% of every £1000 raised to purchase a piece myself or as a donation to one of the art charities supported by the scheme.

About the scheme:
#artistsupportpledge is an artist-led movement and network to support artists struggling financially during Covid 19 using the social media platform Instagram.
Full details: artistsupportpledge.com

Porous

| Irma Irsara

Porous refers to the filtering of a feminine aesthetic that runs throughout the book. Using basic shapes within the images – spiral, triangle, circle, square – my aim was to transform the masculinity of the four elements.

I used various materials to imprint patterns into the softground – materials that relate to ideas of feminism, liberation and empowerment. These include lace from old dresses and, more importantly, tights, significant as they derive from hose originally worn by European men, subsequently appropriated by women.

Materials from women’s fashion are also a reference to the clothes factories local to me at the time but now gone (around Fontill Road, North London) which were predominantly Greek and Turkish.

The single words, produced with photo etching, were suggested by Frances Presley as counterpoints to the imagery

Offered for £150 as part of #artistsupportpledge

Limited edition artists book with hand-printed etchings
13/20 – number 13 in edition of 20
(number 1 was purchased by British Library, Modern Contemporary Collection)

Linen-coated hard cover
Stitch bound – printed back and front

8 pages + blank inside covers
8 x 2 plate etchings total – 1 per page
Etchings are aquaforte, sugar lift, aquatint, soft ground incorporating colour tissue (Chine-collé)

single word texts are etched on shaped plates

book size 16.5 x 16.5 cm
page size 16 x 16 cm

About the scheme:
#artistsupportpledge is an artist-led movement and network to support artists struggling financially during Covid 19 using Instagram.
Full details: artistsupportpledge.com

#artistsupportpledge

| Irma Irsara

The Artist Support Pledge is new scheme which aims to promote and support artists at a difficult time. The concept is simple: Artists who commit to the pledge will post images of a work that’s for sale on Instagram, for no more than £200 ($230), and each time their sales reach £1,000 ($1,155) they promise to buy another artist’s work for £200.

Selling certain works cheaper is an act of generosity on the part of artists in return for support. In addition, when an artist reaches their target, they pledge to pay it forward

The initiative was set up by Matthew Burrows to alleviate some of the stress the pandemic has caused to artists. The project, which he launched on his Instagram page, “was really a response to the current situation, a creative solution to how I might help myself but also friends and colleagues through this period, by utilizing the generosity of  the arts community”

I currently have a number of works on offer (with more to follow) which can be purchased direct or through my Big Cartel site.

links to the work (clockwise):

Riflesso di terra arida (Reflection of Dry Earth)

Artichoke Stalks

Studio con il nero (Study with Black)

Acqua limpida (Limpid Water)

Studio sull’alba 3 (Dawn Study 3) 

 

 

New Selling Platform

| Irma Irsara

My new selling platform at Big Cartel is now live and includes a selection of fibre art pulpworks, etchings and digital prints. Click on the link to browse the artwork which will be updated on a regular basis. If you have any questions please get in touch – I’d love to hear from you.

irmairsara.bigcartel.com

 

 

 

 

 

Uni e verso (1991) / 2 colour etching / aquatint, open bite, aqua-forte /
A/P4 (edition of 20) / Somerset White Texture 300gsm / H 35 cm x W 28 cm

Arrestarsi ai raggi notturni (2006) /cotton fibre, pigment dyes / H 31 x W 27 cm

Halse for Hazel (2015) / A1 / limited edition digital print / edition of 15 / Epson archival inks on Somerset Velvet 300gsm paper

Zero Celsius – digital prints

| Irma Irsara

My current exhibition is at Resource for London, 356 Holloway Road, London N7 6PA until 27th March ’18 – exhibition statement below.

“The transparency of the material leads me to look closer, almost searching for and imaginary landscape inside the heart of the ice. I find ice is very similar to other materials I have used in the past like glass, mirror and pulp. When light enters the artwork, it makes the edges more defined and frees the boundaries between artwork and the surrounding space.”

Irma Irsara‘s work is influenced by an interest in environmental issues in a practice that embraces techniques as diverse as fibre art, stained glass bookmaking, print, video and installation. Within the context of the Anthropocene Epoch, where human activity has been the dominant influence in altering the geographical landscape, Irsara contemplates ideas of  symbiosis as a strategy for human survival. The symbiosis of organic materials with the ice is particularly significant. It is the moment when nature takes over and the artist becomes the observer of new forms.

The digital prints on display are a permanent record of the time-based, site-specific installation work created by the artist in 2013/14. This constantly changing and daily-renewed work was produced over a three week period in the former Victorian ice wells at the London Canal Museum, King’s Cross. Working with ice, a material very much associated with the theme of climate change, the work explores natural cycles and outcomes in relation to surrounding conditions and is intended as a starting point for debate. She has a fascination with the medium, from the fusing together of forms to the slow, imperceptible movement of embedded material – bark, melinex, wire lights – as the melting process progresses. She also examines the possibility of producing hollow forms of ice by utilizing the natural freezing process. This is further explored in her more recent time-lapse pieces. Irsara is intrigued by the notion of a precise moment of transformation and change of state.

l’incisione

| Irma Irsara

Riguardando i lavori di anni fa, ricordo le tecniche iniziate assieme col grande maestri dell’incisione Bruscaglia e Bertoni, professori all’Accademia di Urbino quando io ero studente. A Londra, ho poi ripreso l’incisione negli anni 90 nei workshops di Ormond Road.

Donna con camoscia Irma Irsara 1990

Collegando e rivisitando sempre i miei lavori di prima, vedo come mi è molto importante tutto quello che ho fatto prima per la mia formazione artistica e per inventare sempre nuove possibilità per nuove  opere.

La sovvraposizione delle lastre e l’uso di solo due colori mi affascina ancora. La tecnica del sugarlift e open-bite dona una libertà simile al dipingere ed è molto utile per indicare ombre e graduazioni gentili per la composizione e tema. La possibilità di multeplici dell’incisione-stampe fatte con le mani da me ha un fascino tattile che non si dimentica facilmente.

Ora la ricerca è diventata quella lontana prospettiva all’infinito – l’orrizzonte che non ha mai fine.

I currently have a small selection of framed etchings for a limited time and at very affordable prices at:
Libertea Cafe, Unit G-12, 159-163 Marlborough Road, London N19 4NF
Details, including opening times, can be found on YELP.

Verso l’isola di murano Irma Irsara 1990
Strada nella foresta Irma Irsara 1990
La famiglia Irma Irsara 1981
Relazione con la luna Irma Irsara 1990
La strega del fieno Irma Irsara 1990

London Print Show – Members Summer Show

| Irma Irsara

Zero Celsius_DAY_8_ 07SUMMER MEMBERS SHOW 2016
LONDON PRINT STUDIO
425 Harrow Road, London W10 4RE
24th June – 26th August 2016

Opening party: Thursday June 23rd 6.30pm – 8.30pm

This year’s London Print Studio’s Members Summer Show offers snapshot of fine art contemporary printmaking in London. The show features work across the full range of print techniques, with etching particularly well represented. There is work by well established and emerging artists.

Picture shows digital print (ZC DAY 8 – 07) from the Zero Celsius series of images taken of the ice installation in the former Victorian ice wells at the London Canal Museum.