Duality, A Digital Dialogue: Recent Prints by John Lysak
In the Annex Gallery
October 13, 2006 through January 27, 2007

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John Lysak, a printmaker used to hand-printing methods such as lithography and intaglio, now experiments with digital printing technology in Duality, A Digital Dialogue. Lysak begins by digitally photographing or scanning images he finds in books, media, films and television, which are then cropped, distorted and layered together to re-contextualize the content. Lysak feels that because the images are digitally captured, the best means to produce the prints is the gicleé print. In the gicleé process images are derived from high resolution scans and printed with archival quality inks. A wide range of paper choices is available, and the process yields a richness of detail without the cost and time-intensiveness of traditional printmaking methods.

Rather than presenting a distinct narrative, Lysak’s prints layer metaphorical images that the viewer must unpack. He states that the work is heavily influenced by his “interest in history and politics,” and he derives his images from film and television archives, frequently invoking the “dark” plots of film noir. It is an interest in the “darker aspects of human existence” that drives the consistent representation of dual images—pairs that are related in a cause and effect sort of manner, the first being a veneer for reality, and the other the visceral horror of reality.

In each of these prints, the use of lighting is extremely calculated. It is perhaps the strongest formal property linking all of the pieces of Duality together. Contrast is key, whether it’s the lighting of a woman’s stark white face against the black netting of her veil and the darkness behind her, or the nearly incendiary, glowing white figure of Marlene Dietrich against a backdrop fresco of angels. Contrast is also a governing force in the succession of images. The first scenes of “Bribe,” “Conversation,” “Deal,” and “Target” illustrate a make-believe spy world next to a horrific real life second image. Spies and their political counterparts are significant to the politics of Lysak’s work; he simultaneously portrays them as alluring film noir figures, and as they are in reality—conduits for gruesome deaths. He is ultimately interested in the relationship between power and violence, and he attempts to tear down the glamorizing ideology that media throws over the reality of death. Lysak hopes that Dualities will bring these subjects back to “conscience objectivity” for his viewing audience.

Originally from Olympia, Washington, Lysak earned his B.A. in Fine Arts from Evergreen College and his M.F.A. in Printmaking from Carnegie Mellon University. He worked as a master printmaker for Stone Press Editions in Seattle, and has been an Associate Professor of printmaking at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania since 1996. In 1998, with colleague Franz Spohn, John founded Egress Press and Research, a fine art publishing and research component of the printmaking studio at Edinboro of which he is currently the director.