Office: (415) 931-8035
Fax: (415) 931-5943
E-Mail: [email protected]
URL: www.shootinggallerysf.com
Hours: Tues. through Sun. 12 pm to 7 pm

PRESS RELEASE - 4/2/2003 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Txutxo Perez and Marco Marinucci coming from different cultural backgrounds, Mexican and Italian, approach printmaking with a mix of cross-cultural perspectives, experiences, techniques, and aesthetics producing prints that stun the eye, stimulate the intellect and catch the spirit.

Txutxo born and raised in Mexico City grew up surrounded by his father’s work restoring Asian as well as other cultural artifacts. Upon graduating in 1984 with a degree in Fine Arts from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas (ENAP) at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) spent 5 years in the Mexico City punk rock scene. He began his career as a visual artist in the early 90’s. In the mid 90’s Txutxo exhibited and traveled in Austria, Spain, and France as well the entire West Coast from Tijuana Mexico to Vancouver Canada. Txutxo settled in San Francisco in the late 90’s because of its numerous and diverse cultural communities which has become the prime inspiration for his current work. Txutxo intentionally engages the spectator with a visual vocabulary that is multidimensional in culture and vision. His prints are very much like Chinese puzzle boxes in that they open only after proper mental processing one element then another. The first element embedded in his prints is an indigenous Mexican cultural upbringing with Aztec ancestry where social lines such as love and evil are not so Euro-black and white. The next element stems from an early exposure to Asian artifacts in his childhood, which expands his refined iconic vocabulary of Mexican and American traditional and pop art. The third element is that of the engaged cultural observer reading and transforming scenes of blended cultural themes of common life into social commentaries with clear strokes of sarcasm, eroticism, struggle, judgement, drama and passion to form visionary prints. His printing technique is unique in that he starts with rendering his scenes onto a linoleum block followed by a print composite of bristol paper, affixed gold leaf and silk-screened inks.

Marco working solely in portraiture combines a personal mastery of the ancient Japanese woodcut printing technique with a range of delicate to dramatic cut patterns to render his visual knowledge of the person portrayed into basswood and Douglas fir plates. Utilizing a vivid palette of hand crafted water-based inks and a technique of hand pulling mulberry paper Marco produces an edition of 9 fine art prints per plate. Marco has an international resume of education, apprenticeship training, exhibitions, articles, awards and affiliations stretching from Europe through America to Japan, which has inspired and fueled his passion for woodblock printmaking. Marco draws from a myriad of visual influences and cultural references: German Expressionist printmaking, medieval Italian painting, Islamic calligraphy, Maori tattoos, and other masters of the woodblock medium yet his prints remain distinctly contemporary and visually seductive.

Show Title:

"The Printmakers"

Artists:

Txutxo Perez and Marco Marinucci

Show Dates:

April 7 through May 3

Reception Date:

April 10 from 7 pm to 11 pm

Special Printmaking Demonstration:

"From Meiji to Manga: Japanese Woodblock Printmaking"
by Marco Marinucci - April 26 from 6 pm to 8 pm.

Gallery Hours:

Tuesday through Sunday, 12 pm to 7 pm or by appointment.