Etchings are known for precise lines, while aquatints use a similar technique to produce more liquid-seeming images that resemble watercolor. Most of the works in “New Prints by Jake Muirhead,” on display at the Old Print Gallery, combine the two. The result is rich and subtle, achieving a looseness that seems incompatible with the process of etching a metal plate with acid. The artist also sometimes incorporates drypoint, whose effects appear closer to drawing; the show includes a drypoint “Jack-O-Lantern” that looks like a charcoal sketch.
A local printmaker and teacher, Muirhead often depicts traditional subjects. His show includes trees, flowers, fruit and female nudes. (One playful piece juxtaposes a naked woman with a bare slice of lemon.) Most of the prints are black-and-white or sepia-toned, but some are tinted with red and green. The latter hue highlights “Winter Tree,” while “Claws” chooses red to portray crustacean pincers. In color, the most complex print is “November,” in which red bleeds into green and then black.
Although Muirhead works in a centuries-old form, his prints have a contemporary outlook. His subjects include commonplace items that are battered or decayed, and the renderings seem equally weathered. “Oil Can” emerges from drips and smears, as if the print had been handled by a grimy-pawed mechanic (or, perhaps, Jackson Pollock). Showing an object that’s emerging from pictorial chaos is a classic technique, but Muirhead’s mastery makes it feel new.
Jenkins is a freelance writer.
In Line/Out of Line
On view through Jan. 14 at Heiner Contemporary, 1675 Wisconsin
Ave. NW; 202-338-0072;
www.heinercontemporary.com
.
Stanley Agbontaen:
A Celebration of Life
On view through Jan. 7 at International Visions, 2629 Connecticut Ave. NW; 202-234-5112;
www.inter-visions.com.
New Prints
by Jake Muirhead
On view through Jan. 23 at the Old Print Gallery, 1220 31st St. NW; 202-965-1818;
www.oldprintgallery.com.
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