Kristen Leonard has been passionate about art throughout her entire life.

During high school, she took art classes every year. Getting ready to embark on her college career, Leonard knew she wanted to pave her way into the art world.

Leonard is now a senior printmaking major at Syracuse University and curatorial assistant for ‘Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions.’ Becoming a printmaking major was thanks to the influence of her professor Andrew Saluti.

Saluti is the curator for the ‘Pressing Print’ art exhibition. On Feb. 2, he and the SUArt Gallery opened the exhibition at Shaffer Art Building. The exhibit will run until March 18.

The exhibition features artwork made from various forms of printmaking techniques. These include lithography, etching and digital printing from the ULAE shop. The show was designed to reflect the evolution of printmaking art in America.

Printmaking is a medium in which a surface is prepared with a design and the surfaces are used to make multiple prints. Lithography is one of the oldest printmaking processes. It uses lithographic stones as a prepared surface. Etching, or intaglio, tends to use metals to create surfaces for printing. Digital printing is considered another form of printmaking because artists can still use it to make multiple prints.

The show focuses on 20^th-century American prints from artists such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Kiki Smith. Bill Goldston, the director of ULAE, chose to start the traveling exhibition at SU because he was impressed with the effect SUArt Galleries has had on the public.

‘As technology has progressed, artists are able to incorporate multiple forms of printmaking into their own pieces,’ Saluti said. ‘The exhibition is about incorporating the old traditions with newer traditions.’

At the ULAE printmaking shop, printmaking artists collaborate to combine older methods, such as lithography, with digital designs to produce wider varieties of artwork.

Although Leonard experimented with printmaking sporadically in high school, her passion for printmaking started in the classroom during her freshman year. She learned about the medium in Saluti’s studio class through historic overviews of priceless and famous prints.

Saluti said that SU is dedicated to printmaking education and keeping the public aware of the medium.

‘Education is central to what we do,’ he said. ‘We’re constantly educating others from our art spaces, and we’re always keeping students involved.’

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Published on February 7, 2012 at 12:00 pm