A New Art Exhibit in the Program Room Art Gallery

"Creatures"
By Paul Loukides

An original art
exhibition at the
Virginia Discovery
Museum.
March 1 - April 11, 2011

It’s my belief that too many artists have forgotten the relationship of art to play. If, as many have observed, play is the work that children do, then we should recognize that art is the play that adults do.
This series of prints began with wanting to create six prints of creatures for a new granddaughter. I had no idea what the creatures would look like, but I knew they shouldn’t be simply cute and cuddly (no kittens or bunnies or puppies) and they shouldn’t be too frightening or menacing (no aliens, satanic figures or grotesques); somewhere between those extremes, imaginary creatures waited. As it turned out, there were more than six. Once I had done the first six, the creatures demanded to be expressed in clay; once I started making clay creatures new creatures appeared, the new creatures insisted on their own woodblock prints. Somewhere along the line, one of the creatures became a painting (since gone to a good home) and I accepted the idea that I would be doing creature prints/sculptures/paintings until they were no longer play.
- Paul Loukides