The Center for Contemporary Graphic Art (CCGA) is pleased to announce an exhibition of intaglio artists from the Tohoku University of Art and Design. 
    Tohoku University of Art and Design was established in Yamagata City (Yamagata Prefecture) 30 years ago, and is still the Tohoku region’s leading art education facility. Founded 20 years ago, the printmaking course continues to produce countless numbers of printmaking artists. Physis Budding Print Artists, a group exhibition that tours galleries throughout Japan on an annual basis exemplifies the fruit of their labors. Opened 25 years ago in Sukagawa City (Fukushima prefecture), CCGA has been exhibiting the work of contemporary Japanese printmaking artists more recently, in addition to the center’s collection of contemporary American prints. Sukagawa has a strong connection with the printmaking technique intaglio: it was the birthplace of Aoudo Denzen, an artist born in the Edo period who created Western-style art, and a pioneer of intaglio in Japan.
    It has been 10 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake destroyed large parts of the region. Even now natural disasters continue to ravage Japan, and internationally, no solution has presented itself to the poverty and environmental problems and confrontation between different races, ethnic groups, and countries. To top it all off, a historically catastrophic pandemic has left the world in a state of chaos.
    Intaglio is performed in a very tactile way, by etching the surface of a sheet of metal using edged tools or chemicals to create reactions. When the etched image is transferred to paper however, a unique picture space is created, as if unveiling the artist’s imaginative fictional images. Historically, intaglio was form of media used to depict the social landscape, as can often be seen in the expressive techniques used for allegory and satire. Although images depicted in contemporary intaglio have become more personal or inner forms of expression, these introspective pictures reveal the intertwinement of the profound subtlety of their creators’ feelings and the actual world we live in—a reflection of the current mood through the filter of the artist.
    Physis means ‘nature’ or ‘creation’ in Greek. Physis Intaglio is based on the original Physis exhibition (with a particular focus on intaglio artists); the original took its name in the hope that young printmakers will continue to create an abundance of art, just as nature creates life. The intaglio technique is reminiscent of a mirror: the actual impression is reversed from polished copper plate to paper, the work unswayed by any classic image theory that states that painting resembles a mirror image. One could also add the metaphor that the work mirrors the times. The CCGA hopes this exhibition will offer artists the chance to exhibit their attitudes towards intaglio, the difficulties they face, and art itself in general, while offering visitors the opportunity to reflect keenly on the present.