Under Pressure: Prints from Two Palms Press explores the processes and collaborative effort of the artist and master printer. Prints and monoprints by Pedro Barbieto, Mel Bochner, Chuck Close, Tara Donovan, Carroll Dunham, Sol LeWitt, David Row, Jessica Stockholder, and Terry Winters are presented along with several printing plates and photographs of the artists working in the print studio to explore the course of a print's creation. Under Pressure will be on view at the University Museum of Contemporary Art , University of Massachusetts Amherst from February 2 through March 15, with an opening reception on Friday, February 1 from 5 to 7 p.m.

The exhibition examines the vision of David Lasry, founder of Two Palms Press. Originally intending to have artists come for a two week "visit" to the print shop, Lasry soon realized the projects were more of a process than a fixed event. The collaborators work for "as long as it takes" to pull the artist's idea from the press. It is not unusual for a new printing process or technique to be invented along the way. And the endless possibilities available through computer technologies often provide the artist with the means to work toward surprising and new results. Under Pressure highlights Lasry's innovative breakthroughs in the printmaking medium, and each artist's unique skills and experience enhances the collaboration, creating a working environment of discovery, challenge and constant evolution.

Chuck Close immediately grasped the potential for embossment when he encountered the hydraulic press at Two Palms Press. Working from a self-portrait ink drawing, the only drawing Close has made since his catastrophic illness in 1998, the image was deeply laser burned (engraved) into a plate. The necessity of having to deeply engrave the drawing in the plate for heavy embossment and the delicacy of the marks ruled out the traditional use of etching acids to create the printing plate. The same self-portrait image was executed in two different manners to create two embossed/relief prints that made the characteristic x's, o's and little abstract shapes that constitute a Close drawing become actual physical realities.

Sol LeWitt's grid of 36 Five-Pointed Stars (1996) is part of a set of seven such grids representing varieties of stars ranging from three-pointed to nine-pointed. As is usual with LeWitt, a formula, simple at first, grows more complicated as it materializes. Seven types of stars, from three to nine points, are printed in all possible two-part color combinations of white, black, and gray, and the primary colors red, yellow, and blue with paper tinted one color and aluminum relief plate inked a second. The result is seven groups of 36 like-starred panels aligned in six rows of six. Aluminum plates were industrially manufactured and run under enormous pressure through Lasry's hydraulic press, producing a deep relief in the soft, thick paper. Because of the somewhat watery, translucent tints, the compromised colors are akin to LeWitt's wall paintings.

Jessica Stockholder's monotypes, or unique prints, are made using "linoleum, a sweater, some wire, a hose, just stuff from my studio." Stockholder's fascination with materials is evident -- she is a great observer of the innate capacities of ordinary stuff. But the systematic nature of her use of them only emerges with prolonged consideration. The succession of materials and matrixes in each is basically a sequence of simple positives and negatives, but the result of the interactions and interferences among those sequences is complex.

Under Pressure: Prints from Two Palms Press was organized by Alexandra Muse and Pamela Auchincloss Arts Management. A catalog accompanies the exhibition and is available at the University Museum of Contemporary Art . The University Museum of Contemporary Art 's showing of Under Pressure is supported, in part, by funds from the UMass Arts Council.

The University Museum of Contemporary Art , located on the lower level of the Fine Arts Center, is open to the public Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. The Gallery is also open to audiences for evening performances held in the Concert Hall of the Fine Arts Center. For further information, please call (413) 545-3670 or visit the Gallery's web site at www.umass.edu/fac/universitygallery.

Image caption: Sol LeWitt, Five-Pointed Stars, 1996, relief print on tinted handmade paper, 36 individually printed stars, 54 x 54 inches overall.