Brian Fisher Print, Paint and Sculpture Blog

My Monotype Print, A Decampment of Djinn will be in the Printmakers' Hand V Exhibit at Northwind Art Best Gallery in Port Townsend, WA September 2 - October 31.  Sponsored by Corvidae Press print collective of Port Townsend.  Artist, Marit Berg is the 2021 juror for this much-loved biennial show.  Here's a YouTube link to this wonderful exhibit.  

My monotype print “Amphora Asterion”, exhibits in "A Trio of Printmakers", ( Lynn Brofsky, Brian Fisher & Steve MacFarlane).  Feb 7- March 1, 2020 at Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island. The opening reception is  Feb. 7, 6-8 pm. Amphora Asterion is a   Monotype Print,  29 1/4 x 21 1/2  in. depicting Asterion, the Minotaur of Cretan Myth. And the Queen gave birth to a child who was called Asterion. —Apollodorus   A mingled form where two strange shapes combined, And different natures, bull and man, were joined. —Euripides  

Medusa, my monotype print, will exhibit at Roby King Gallery , Bainbridge Island WA, Feb 7- March 1, 2020 in "A Trio of Print-makers" with work by Lynn Brofsky, Brian Fisher & Steve McFarlane. So delighted to be part of this talented lineup!  The opening Reception is Feb 7, 6-8 pm. Check it Out! The Myths of Medusa and Perseus have been told and retold for time out of mind and the image of Medusa as Gorgon can be found in art and architecture for thousands of years.  Even today she appears on the flag of Sicily and ever since Gianni Versace adopted Medusa as his logo in 1978 her iconic image has become even more pervasive. 

The eighth century BC poet Hesiod, of Boeotia, composed a poem, the Theogony, about the creation of the world and the Greek gods.  In it he describes the Gorgons, the mortal Medusa, whose name comes from the old verb médô that means “I rule,” and her two immortal sisters, Sthenno or “strength” and Euryale “the one that leaps or wand...

The Bull of Heaven,  monotype print, Brian Fisher Taurus is perhaps the most prominent constellation in the northern hemisphere’s winter sky. One of the oldest described constellations, dating at least from the early Bronze Age when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox, Taurus is symbol for the bull in the oldest mythologies of Sumer/Babylon, Egypt, India, Minoan Crete and Greece. Wild bulls of Europe and Asia were huge, possibly as large as 6 feet at the shoulder, Whether referenced in visual art or described in writing the bull was venerated as the embodiment of supernatural strength and virility. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero Gilgamesh angered Innana, (Sumerian Goddess of love, sex war, and… justice) with his refusal to be her mate.  So spurned, she called down “The Bull of Heaven” to destroy Gilgamesh, Uruk his city, drink up all the water, devour the pasture and strip the land bare. The hero Gilgamesh and his best bro,...

"The Temple of Forgetting" Rust Print on linen over panel, 41 x 33 in. Lethe’s Temple, "The Temple of Forgetting", has its foundations in a river.  In early Greek myth, Lethe was one of five rivers that flowed through the subterranean Kingdom of Hades.  Souls who passed into Hades had need to forget the suffering they had endured, or perhaps, the torment they had inflicted.  So, if a soul were ever to achieve peace, the dead would drink from its water in order to forget their earthly life and the river Lethe would wash away the memory of physical reality. Myths evolve and Lethe the river was eventually personified as Goddess.  Lethe the Goddess became synonymous with forgetting.  Lethe is the root word of lethargy meaning weariness, lassitude, and fatigue. Please view “The Temple of Lethe”, a Rust Print Assemblage, at my studio, stop #5, on the  2017 Vashon Island Holiday Studio Tour , December 2-3 & 9-10 (Saturdays and Sundays) 10am to 4pm. ...

Artist Denise Kester and I shared a wonderful opening at Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island Saturday evening.  We are each inspired by myth and pursue our own personal take on that seen and imagined world in monotype and in paint.  Thank you Andrea and Wes, gallery curators and owners, for thinking to pair the two of us and for the opportunity to show with Roby King again!   Check us out!  Our work will exhibit from November 3-25-2017.  You may preview my contribution to our show here: Brian Fisher Prints and Paintings

"Spirit of the Woods" monoprint with gold leaf,  8 3/4 x 25 in. My Monoprint “Spirit of the Woods” shows at Roby King Gallery , November 3-27, 2017, when Denise Kester and I exhibit our personal interpretations of myth in print and paint.  My work is about the myths I’ve been exploring: vegetative deities like Europe's “Green Man”, Japan’s “Kodama” and the Greek myths about Goddesses Demeter and Persephone. I grew up on the high plains of northwestern Kansas.  Demeter would be at home there where grain (wheat and corn) rules, but unless they are planted and nurtured, trees there are rare.  Perhaps that is why I've always recognized what is special and sacred in trees and why I am drawn to these ancient vegetative stories that exist across cultures. "The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life and activity; it afford...

I’m a bit obsessed with all things Labyrinth.  The Minotaur and the Labyrinths' physical geometry have been elements of personal curiosity and visual exploration for many years.  I am not sure why this particular Hero's Journey appeals to me but I return to it over and again.  Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “La casa de Asterión” is a compelling contemporary and sympathetic take on this ancient story.  The tittle of my Rust Monotype “Monster” references Asterion, the Minotaur,  as  Borges describes him, “a prisoner of his own loneliness, his otherness, his condition of monster”. “Monster” will be exhibited in the 2017 Expressions Northwest at Northwind Arts Center, 701 Water Street, Port Townsend, Wa.  The exhibit opens 11:30 August 3rd and closes at 5:30 on August 27.  The Exhibition’s junior, Susan Warner will speak on August 5 during Port Townsend's Art Walk Evening.

The mythic Green Man represents a union of humanity and the vegetative world.  He is the sacrificial human conduit and connection to the plant cycle of birth, reproduction, revitalization and resurrection. Known by many names, through time and a spectrum of cultures, including but not limited to: Dionysos, Orpheus, Osiris, Adonis, Cernnunos, Khidir etc… he is the god born to sacrifice and through his union with the goddess to be born again.   Historically, his seasonal incarnation was worshiped locally.   My print Atticus (man of Attica) celebrates the area of Greece that includes the region centered on the Attic peninsula that projects into the Agean Sea , encompass ing the city of Athens, capital of Greece.  Atticus is the first of many Collograph images I have made to celebrate The Green Man.

The 22nd Annual Vashon Island Garden Tour, Saturday June 23, and Sunday, June 24, 10 am to 5 pm, is an offering of five unique gardens with features that will delight your senses.  Read all about the tour here: Vashon Garden Tour. I will be showing and selling my art cards and cut steel “Threshold Guardians,” garden art personifying myth and boundaries, at the Garden Art Market during the tour.  The image above featuring Zeus as a black swan is a sample of my “Guardian” garden stakes. The Garden Art Market is open to the public 10 am to 5 pm both Saturday and Sunday.  You will find the market conveniently located mid island on Vashon Hwy. and on the former K2 building front lawn.  The Garden Market will feature 20 artists, food and musical entertainment.  I will see you there rain or shine!

Achilles by Carol Ann Duffy Myth’s river – where his mother dipped him, fished him, a slippery golden boy flowed on, his name on its lips. Without him, it was prophesied, they would not take Troy. Women hid him, concealed him in girls’ sarongs; days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs … But when Odysseus came, with an athlete’s build, a sword and a shield, he followed him to the battlefield, the crowd’s roar, And it was sport, not war, his charmed foot on the ball … But then his heel, his heel, his heel … Carol Ann Duffy, Britain’s Poet Laureate 2009, composed this poem on the occasion of  footballer David Beckham’s injury to his Achilles tendon. Achilles Heel is my Monotype Print (30 x 15 1/4 in.) created for exhibition in my studio during the 2012 Vashon Island Art Studio tour.

The mythic Phoenix is a wonderful symbol of self renewal. There is ever only one Phoenix.  It leads a singular existence.  After living a long life, five hundred years, sustaining itself by eating frankincense and fragrant gums, it builds a funeral pyre  and self incinerates. The story of the Phoenix, it's long life, death in cleansing fire and rebirth from the ashes, appears in many cultures. Perhaps because it affirms a circular story of the individual soul’s regeneration. At left is my Rust Print “Phoenix” to be exhibited during the upcoming Vashon Studio Tour.   It is 30 x 20 in. and mounted to wood panel. “Let me not wander in a barren dream, But when I am consumed in the fire, Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.” John Keats

In our image obsessed culture the old, old story of Narcissus and the body beautiful is as new as another gorgeous photo, thank you Bruce Weber, for Abercrombie & Fitch's latest pitch to purchase.  To purchase what?     A reflection of beauty of course.  Made self aware by comparison and confounded by perfection we are all in love with surface but desire depth of being.   So the story of Narcissus forever resonates in the individual’s search for self.   At left is my new Monotype Print, Narcissus Reflected ,  (22 x 29.5 in.)  See it in my studio during the Spring Vashon Island Studio Tour. Here is Mr. Eliot's take on Narcissus, a poem of self awareness and metamorphosis, Cantacal V, Or- The Death of Saint Narcissus by T. S. Eliot He walked once between the sea and the high cliffs When the wind made him aware of his limbs smoothly passing each other And of his arms crossed over his brea...