Patrick L. Mahon, Parable Language #4: Impersonation, 1989, colour woodcut; recipient of the International Jury Prize, 18th International Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, 1989.
Photo: Željko Stevanić. MGLC Archive.
The exhibition included fourteen prints made between 1988 and 1990. Patrick L. Mahon, a Canadian graphic artist, curator and professor, is a typical representative of the generation of Canadian graphic artists that became established in the 1980s. His graphic expression is figurative and draws on the existing iconographic motifs of Western culture, which he then transforms by allowing the images to develop more intuitively and subtly. In his prints, he always starts with a drawing, with which he explores all the problems related to the image. With distinct strokes, he draws his signs directly on plywood (in the case of woodcut) and applies colour to the plate so that it fills the cuts, thereby raising the intensity of the image just like in intaglio printmaking. This process is followed by the application of different colours on different parts of the same plate. His mode of applying colours to the plates enables him to very ingeniously combine woodcut, calligraphic relief and the intaglio printing techniques.