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Yizhak Elyashiv’s prints explore the potential of variation within set parameters. His “Handful of Grains” maps are large six by ten foot intaglios, each made up of a grid of sixty steel plates. The maps trace a series of permutations, each interwoven one to the other through complex, intricate webs of line, point, overlayment, and overpainting. While Elyashiv is reluctant to make statements about his work, he does acknowledge a concern with order and ordering systems, a universal order that is perhaps essentially mystical. The maps are quiet, contemplative—as are most of his works—and minimalist to advantage. From reevescontemporary.com
Yizhak’s work has been collected by major museums and galleries for a number of years. Best known for his “maps” (see “Handful of Grain” catalog) the curators who have followed Yizhak’s work had been waiting for the next breakthrough in his work. The monumental prints produced at Widlwood Press in 2001 seem to have achieved this breakthrough.
Yizhak’s work has involved both quantitative math and science and the arbitrary marks of nature. His maps speak to this very directly. His work at Wildwood Press speaks to it in a more subtle way – single petals of a flower, arranged according to size along a line are cut into a plate – given back to unpredictable Nature through a drop of ink on the plate prior to printing. Yizhak’s elegant and effortless aesthetic seems to roll off the press.
Maryanne Ellison Simmons/Wildwood Press
