“Art is embedded in nature and they who can extract it, have it.” – Albrecht Dürer

The technique of woodcut is generally considered to be the oldest form of printmaking. The artist intervenes on the block of wood by using knives and other sculpting implements to ease out a composition on the surface of the organic material. It is a printmaking technique that one associates with German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, whose works in this medium can be admired at the Mdina Cathedral Museum, and with the Japanese Ukiyo-e artists such as Utamaro, Hokusai and Hiroshige.

Anabel Cordina

Twentieth-century artists, especially those who belonged to the two main German Expressionist groups, Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), were major exponents of the medium, realising that its inherent possibilities lent themselves to expressionist exaggeration, be it in distorted features as well as intensely emotional expressions.

Bold simplicity, flat patterns and general roughness characterised these works, bolstering the artistic language that emphasised the drama and the despair of the early 20th-century human condition. One can mention Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, all belonging to The Bridge, who effectively exploited the medium, thus enriching the expressionist language with more depth and anguish.

Baqbieq

A patience with intricacy is required from the artist, besides a profound knowledge of the properties of the wooden material. Essentially, by producing the block for a woodcut, the artist would be embarking on a process which is similar to that of producing reliefs. The raised areas, rather like altorilievo, are covered with ink and pressed onto a sheet of paper. The recessed areas that had been whittled away do not retain any ink and appear as blank areas in the final finished work.

Anabel Cordina (b.1980) is an artist who is synonymous with this particular technique of printmaking. The title of her current exhibition, Noli, (Maltese for the old game of Hide and Seek) might also refer to the creative process itself and to the playful easing out of elements, be they abstract or representational, that are concealed in the lattices of the block of wood.

Moħba

Her prints for this exhibition hint at organic wood patterns, creating biomorphic swirls and depth in a milieu of geometrical patterns, ‘landscapes’ where one can get easily lost, maybe never to be found. The exhibition’s mission statement says: “Noli (Hide and Seek) is a collection of woodcut monoprints exploring the playful nature of art as a continuous unveiling process, of that which is hidden and the search for the not so obvious.”

The works, though very contemporary, exude the timelessness that one encounters in hieroglyphics

The works, though very contemporary, exude the timelessness that one encounters in hieroglyphics, in the patterns that adorn the megaliths of some of our neolithic temples. They also hint at old maps, at labyrinths, at possible itineraries that one could follow to discover a hidden treasure. One can imagine mountains, crevasses, contours, valleys – a Tolkien Middle Earth, brimming with adventure and secrets.

Bejn Haltejn (detail)

French sociologist Jean Baudrillard remarked on the game of Hide and Seek: “Oh, the delicious thrill of hiding while the others come looking for you, the delicious terror of being discovered, but what panic when, after a long search, the others abandon you” while reflecting on life itself and the analogies that one of the simplest of games carries with the concepts of existence and survival.

Cordina plays this multi-layered game too, enticing us to lose ourselves, to rediscover ourselves and enjoy the solitude of hiding places, away from the gaze of society, to enjoy the thrill of being children again, to be artists just as we were before were educationally conditioned.

Nistaħba, Nittawwal, Niddawwa

Artists, such as Cordina, are capable of rediscovering and revealing the magic of worlds that would otherwise be hidden. The artist takes on the role of the seeker, ready to point at the hider or at the secluded location where the hider lies, silently anticipating being discovered.

This series of woodcut monoprints shows Cordina’s intuitive knack for both deciphering and narrating, both graphically and chromatically; this besides her technical prowess in such a particular medium. In the artist’s words: “Noli acts as a metaphor for the latent energy present in introspective moments whereby in solitude, the will to seek is renewed.” An exhibition with such a title exhorts everyone to play the game by visiting it.

Noli, hosted by Mqabba’s Kamra ta’ Fuq and curated by Melanie Erixon for Art Sweven, is on until June 13. Consult the event’s Facebook page for opening hours.

Bejniet