Hall, Joan (Lipofsky, Marvin)

Original Artwork: Layered Pulp Painting

n/p: Joan Hall Studio, 1998(?). Limited Edition. Layered Sheets. Signed & numbered by Joan Hall. Joan Hall is a mixed-media sculptor who uses a mix of materials such as paper, glass, and metal, to create large-scale installations. Her most recent installation as of this writing, “The Invasion of Hull Cove,” was included in the European Cultural Center’s “Personal Structures,“ a collateral exhibition during the Venice Biennale 2019. Garner Tullis (b. 1939) is an American printmaker who taught Hall about papermaking while she assisted him at his Institute of Experimental Printmaking in San Francisco in 1977. Her portfolio reflects her interest in taking the mediums of papermaking and printmaking outside the box since her time at graduate school, and her large-scale sculptural works and installations tend to have an emphasis on climate change: “Hall wants to initiate a conversation about the peril we will face if we choose to ignore climate change. Many of her exhibition installations polarize works about cause and effect, the past and the present, love and loss.” (from joanhallstudio.com) She has experimented with assemblage, tapestry, and glass mosaic composition, which may have been how she came to know Marvin Lipofsky (1938-2016), the influential American glass artist from whose collection we obtained many art prints and exhibition posters, including this one (see also our item No. 7466). The papermaking process starts by creating pulp by breaking down any type of plant fibers, usually wood, cotton, or hemp. The pulp is poured into a mold with a screen where the fibers drain and settle to form a sheet of paper. The sheets are then pressed and dried. With pigmentation, shaping, and textures, handmade paper can become a unique canvas for any medium, and other materials can be embedded in the pulp like flowers, leaves, or scraps to create a pattern or design. Painting techniques with colored pulps can be used on top of plain pulp during the process with stencils or patterns to achieve unique designs that can then be pressed into a sheet as a work of art in itself (see also our item No. 7516). Hall uses pulps like kozo, from a mulberry tree, and gampi, a Japanese shrub, which are used in traditional Eastern Asian papermaking. These can turn out much thinner and translucent but durable making them perfect candidates for her collection of layered pieces, more examples of which can be found on her website. This piece has a sporadically-translucent top layer with some red blocks over a more opaque bottom layer which has several leaves stenciled across the top and down the right edge. It is numbered along the bottom edge in pencil as “20/20,” and Hall’s signature is to the right of that along with the year “ ’98,” also in pencil. Layered Sheets (appx. 17 1/2” x 11 1/4”): limited edition, as indicated by the handwritten number at bottom edge of lower layer. In relatively fine condition with rough, uncut edges which make it difficult to tell whether or not there are any defects; sheets are firmly adhered at top edge. Fine. [Item #7492]

Price: $100.00