CAROL WAX-SHADOWS

September 15, 2006

In the exhibition of the American artist Carol Wax, “Shadows”, more than 100 works from the collection of the Herakleidon Museum were presented.

“Although the subject matter of my works are everyday, ordinary objects”, notes the artist, “I try to present the ordinary as unusual, through my personal experience. Most people do not pay attention at the ordinary objects that surround their everyday life, but for me, even the most mundane things seems magical. I depict old instruments and machines as well as textiles because they have repeating elements or motifs, which give movement and rhythm to light, shadow and form, and which, with the wright technical treatment, can reveal my phantasmagoric perceptions. The dramatic shadings that the artist can achieve with the mezzotint technique make it an ideal imaging medium for the typewriters, sewing machines, fans, projectors and other objects that I often use as subjects in my works. By depicting mechanical objects from other times, whose action we have forgotten, they are transformed into art. Although my technique can be considered figurative in the “nature mort” tradition, I do not treat a “Still Life” as something without life. Presenting my subjects in a transcendental way, I attempt to highlight the soul of the inanimate.

Carol Wax has been recognized as an innovator of the “mezzotinto technique”. The book Mezzotint: History and Technique, published by Harry N. Abrams, in 1990, has established itself as the most comprehensive work defining this difficult this difficult technique of copper engraving.

As part of the exhibition, the artist herself also presented a series of lectures-workshops in English, during which she demonstrated the mezzotint technique.

CAROL WAX

Born in 1953 in New York, Carol Wax is an internationally recognized artist, with a significant number of works on paper and oil paintings to her credit, but established herself in the art world, thanks to her mezzotints. Her works are in numerous museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Boston & the New York public Libraries.

On the occasion of the exhibition of 100 copper engravings by Carol Wax and the dedication to her technique with lectures and workshops, Herakleidon Museum proceeded with the simultaneous renewal of the permanent exhibition of works by M. C. Escher, once again presenting to the art-loving people all his copper engravings.