The Monotype Guild of New England (MGNE) is proud to announce the opening of PRESSTO ! , an invitational exhibit of Maine members of MGNE and the Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA) on September 1st  at the UMVA Portland Gallery, 516 Congress St., inside the Portland Media Center.   An artists’ reception is planned for First Friday, September 2nd  from 5 to 8 pm.  The exhibit continues each day the Portland Media Center is open (generally 10 am to 5 pm) along with Friday evenings from 4- 8, plus Saturdays and Sundays from 1-4 pm until September 30th.  All work is for sale and can be purchased by contacting the individual artists.  The work exhibited are all one-of-a-kind unique prints in a variety of media.

The impetus for this exhibit arose when Covid-19 closures cancelled live shows and other education activities sponsored by the Monotype Guild of New England. As a small part of a newly organized and robust virtual presence beginning in spring 2020, the MGNE instituted a series of zoom meetings with regional members. The Maine meetings, organized by board member Kris Onuf of Portland and Winter Harbor became a meeting place and forum for members who would ordinarily never meet. Artists in Eliot and South Berwick were chatting and collaborating with others in Gardiner, Otisfield, Rockland or Falmouth. Not long into those meetups, members decided to embark on collaborative works in groups of three or four artists with the work mailed from one to another until completion. Bonds were formed and artistic challenges met. Some of those unique print works can be seen in PRESSTO !

A unique print is a one-of-a-kind transfer of an inked or painted image on a surface/substrate to paper or another receiving surface, that cannot be exactly duplicated.  Unique prints stand in contrast to editioned prints, in which each print in the edition is identical. Unique prints may be denoted by the words “monotype” or “monoprint” or by the symbol “1/1”.

The Monotype Guild is a national, nonprofit organization founded in 1985 with a mission to spread understanding and appreciation of one-of-a-kind printmaking. It has sponsored well over 100 open, juried and curated exhibitions in its thirty-seven year history. MGNE exhibits reveal the diverse range of traditional and innovative monoprinting techniques being used by printmakers. With membership open to all artists working in unique prints throughout the United States, the Guild currently has artist members all New England states and from seven states beyond. The website for MGNE and work of member artists can be viewed at MGNE.org

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