Many of the artists whose work is included in this exhibition, use printmaking as their primary medium (Dumisani Mabaso, Dikgwele Paul Molete, Fiona Pole) and for others it is an important counterpoint medium employed to augment their artistic exploration and expression (Robert Hodgins, Claudette Schreuders, Kim Lieberman, Luan Nel, Nathaniel Stern, Zak Benjamin).

The outstanding work by Dumisani Mabaso, which will undoubtedly please print lovers, present themselves as aquatints, and represent years of investigation into printing techniques and employ Mabaso’s original techinique that he calls ‘black resist’.

Dikgwele Paul Molete, who made an unforgettable impression with his previous exhibition (2005) at Art on Paper Gallery, is showing a series of six two or three-plate etchings, in which he uses aquatint and line etching in superb combination. Molete’s confidence as an artist is unmistakably evident in the ease with which he combines his highly personal and original subject matter with unique form and masterful technique. For the work seen here, both of these artsists collaborated with Tim’s Print Studio.

Zak Benjamin has a long working relationship with Tim Foulds, who has supported and encouraged the artist during difficult years. His series of six drypoints presents themselves like drawings of still views of domestic life, all set in a kitchen furnished with kitchen utencils such as a stove, a kettle, a radio, an iron, and so on.

A selection of twenty prints from the portfolio The Long Goodbye, shown on Fiona Pole’s recent successful exhibition at Art on Paper Gallery, employs the seldomly seen carborundum printing technique, and, as in the case of Mabaso, the combination of original printing technique and subject matter, results in highly evocative work.

The work by both Luan Nel and Nathaniel Stern on this exhibition were done during residencies at the Frans Masereel Centrum in Kasterlee, Belgium during 2007, working with printer Zhané Warren.

Four newly released lithographs by Robert Hodgins and some lithographs from Claudette Schreuders’s The Long Day suite of prints, done at The Artists’ Press, are also on exhibition.

What is, however, equally interesting than the variety of printmaking techniques represented on this exhibition, is the subject matter of many of the prints. This centres on street culture. Dumisani Mabaso infuses many of his street scenes with a horned figure, augmenting the inferno-like aspect of contemporary street life. Dikwgele Paul Molete’s prints, in turn, completely redolent of the evocative images of such printmaking masters as Albrecht Durer and James Ensor, and such contemporary painters as Jean-Michel Basquiat, fuses emotional, psychological and physiological aspects of the contemporary human condition. Like Basquiat, he adorns his work with numerous pieces of writing. In the etching, Emotional insecurity (2007), for example, we read such scribblings as “Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear”, “Hit the road quick”, “That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear”, and “Economic insecurity will leave me”. In this etching Molete provides a relentless, wry and sardonic assessment of the type of perfunctory affirmations usually chanted by motivational speakers. His etchings certainly constitute the best of contemporary social criticism in South African art.