Graphic Studio Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of three highly accomplished artists and Graphic Studio Dublin members, Elke Thönnes, Margaret Tuffy and Marta Wakula-Mac. These artists are showcasing how we strive to interpret what we see around us, juxtaposing architecture, landscape and the human figure with history, memory and emotion.

Elke Thönnes exhibition entitled ‘Viewfinder’ mixes etching with photo etching and embossing in her search for new methods to ‘read the city’. Thönnes places iconic city structures onto a variety of maps, often referencing their genesis, occasionally using a pars pro toto approach. Her works are often about contact with architecture and the memory these structures hold. The tactile nature of the work is a comment on the craftsmanship and architecture of generations past. Elke Thönnes, originally from Cologne, Germany, currently lives and works in Dublin.

Margaret Tuffy’s work is based on walks taken in 2013 at three different locations in Erris, north Co. Mayo, Tuffy’s ancestral landscape. Like Thönnes, these places are important because among other things they resonate with history and memory. Walking gives a whole different meaning to a place than if one is propelled quickly past, revealing itself in the present and creating an experience, layered in sensory texture, unique only to that moment in time. The work that is presented is a documentation of the process of discovery.

Marta Wakula-Mac by contrast looks at the human form, and using the printmaking techniques of etching, aquatints and drypoint showcases nudes, female and male, reclining, sitting and standing. Wakula-Mac’s use of line within this work strips back the form to marks and gestures without losing any of the detail, creating a vibrancy and delicacy to the human form.

“She has proved in the past her mastery of fine detail but here Marta has chosen to simplify, to recreate the body with a few telling lines and marks as well as her signature use of colour, a yellow ochre here, an earthy red there. The results in these tiny pieces are as exquisite as ever. Not prettifying the human form but rejoicing in all its manifestations.” (Susan Knight, April 2014).