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ANDREW LEVITSKY, Ukraine, Kiyv
Levitsky uses Intaglio technique - modern Intaglio which includes different ways of work with metal; both etching
drypoint, engraving, mezzotint and aquatint.
A combination of different manners, union of graphical embossing and picturesque intaglio allows the artist to create complicated, wide in range, intense in expression. The possibility to draw freely with a needle on a metal board preserves a straightforward manner of art's creation and imprints artist's individual mode and temperament. Surface is natural for Intaglio. Due to this, imprint obtains deepness and lightness. A fundamental stroke is short or long, straight or creatively stretched, condensing or crossing; it is able to communicate different shades of the mood as well as the landscape's condition, its multidimensionality, spaciousness and airiness.
Andrew Levitsky principally holds on to the laws of the classical Intaglio printing technique.
In this aspect his work is direct continuation of Rembrandt's and Shevchenko's art heritage and a development of his direct teachers' experience.

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The Graphical Works
by the artist from Kyiv
Andrew Levitsky
are presented at the
“Love comes in the Town”
exhibition

A transparent theme of the Town unites new Levitsky’s creations presenting it as a peculiar universe with its diverse and vague manifestations. The idea unites the impressions of blues music and journeys to European towns. The synthesis of visual and hearing perceptions determined the structure of creations’ expression.
Graphical papers have horizontally stretched format, which gives panoramic feeling. These are not traditional city landscapes; in fact, they are “soul’s landscapes”, reflections of different spiritual conditions penetrated by the light perception of the world. Image elements are trees, houses, mountains, faces, fonts etc. They seem to create a fagot, next grows from previous and artist’s hand moves freely, obeying imagination, material, rhythm. Unforced but internally organized visual row-text is created. It is penetrated and enriched by concerns, reflexives, remembrances, associations. Letters or image making “quotes” lay upon landscape composites creating broken “blues” rhythm.
Restrained colors on paper put forward the expressiveness of the line, the stroke. Levitsky uses intaglio technique – modern Intaglio which includes different ways of work with metal; both etching
drypoint, engraving, mezzotint and aquatint.
A combination of different manners, union of graphical embossing
and picturesque intaglio allows the artist to create complicated, wide in range, intense in expression. The possibility to draw freely with a needle on a metal board preserves a straightforward manner of art’s creation and imprints artist’s individual mode and temperament.
Surface is natural for Intaglio. Due to this, imprint obtains deepness and lightness. A fundamental stroke is short or long, straight or creatively stretched, condensing or crossing;
- it is able to communicate different shades of the mood as well as the landscape’s condition, its multidimensionality, spaciousness and airiness.
Andrew Levitsky principally holds on to the laws of the classical Intaglio printing technique.
In this aspect his work is direct continuation of Rembrandt’s and Shevchenko’s art heritage and a development of his direct teachers’ experience.
They are G. Yakutovich, and M. Deregus.
Levitsky’s works testify that intaglio technique gives unlimited possibilities for modern artist’s self-expression; that skilled possession of this technique is a base for modern graphical work’s creation.
The artist has been working with Intaglio for many years already being excited by its wide possibilities, peculiarities of фактури that metal leaves on paper. Exhibition works are printed with copper boards – noble material, flexible and delicate. In addition to this, the author did not make preliminary drafts. The image grew, reflected straight to copper being led by unordinary imagination and spontaneous move of a hand.
Levitsky avoids series which is very peculiar to graphics as an art style. He tries to make each composition individual with a character completed in itself.
Artist richness of his graphical papers accurately communicate different characteristics: clarity and energy and softness, spaciousness and miniature plane, light and darkness…
Completeness of Andrew Levitsky works reminds about the source of Intaglio, its birth form jeweler art. Boarders that were worked through at the level of shape, works in the sphere of art character leave space for viewer’s thoughts and imagination.

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Glossary of Terms

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Glossary of Terms
Used by Andrew Levitsky, Artist & Printmaker

♦ The Basic Terminology
of Printmaking

 ♦Symbols for techniques
used in Printmaking
♦♦♦
The Basic Terminology
of Printmaking Arts

Artist's Proof -a small number of prints set aside for the artist's own use.
Usually designated on the print with the marking A.P.

Edition
The number of images printed from the plate, stone, block, or the like is called an edition. These identical images are pulled either by the artist or printmaker.
The body of the edition is numbered
(for example, 1/50 through 10/50) directly on the print, usually in pencil.
Additional proofs, such as Artist's Proofs, are also part of the edition.

Numbering
Numbering indicates the size of the edition and the number of each particular print. Therefore, 2/50 means that the print is the 2th impression from an edition of 50. Beware of numbering which comes in other forms, such as Roman numerals

Plate
Plate- a slab or sheet of material which can be metal (usually copperplate or tincplate for intaglio processes), plastic, cardboard (collagraph), limestone (lithograph), or any other material capable of being processed to transfer an image in Printmaking Art

Intaglio,. C= Intaglio printmaking process
A basic printmaking process in which the incised or cut grooves of a metal plate hold the ink and printthe image. A heavy press is used to transfer ink from the plate to the paper.

Etching, C3 = Etching
An intaglio process in which a meal
(copper, zinc, or aluminum) plate is coated with an acid resist material.
A sharp instrument draws the image in the acid resist. When the plate is immersed in acid, the exposed metal is 'eaten' away producing a groove in the metal to retain the ink.

Engraving.
An intaglio technique in which fine lines are incised directly into the place and the burrs are removed to produce clean, sharp lines on the print.

Gold Leaf
Gold that is beaten into thin foil sheets and applied to the print. (Japanese: kinpaku ) Similar material forms: silver leaf, gold dust, silver dlist,
mica (urnmo) dust.

Mezzotint -Maniere Noire, C7 = Mezzotint
An intaglio method in which the surface of the moial plate is roughened with a serrated tool (rocker or roulette) to retain ink.

Drypoint, C4 = Drypoint
An intaglio technique in which lines are incised directly into the metal plate but the burr is not removed, resulting in a soft, fuzzy line when printed.

Monoprint/Monotapy, mon. = Monotype
A relief printing technique in which the image is transferred to the paper from the plate with colors.

Relief
Relief -a basic printmaking process in which the upper surfaces of a block are inked and printed on paper. The cut-away areas of the block do not print.

♦♦♦
Symbols for techniques
used in Printmaking

Intaglio printing techniques
Original
C = Intaglio printing (blank); embossing
C1 = Steel engraving
C2 = Burin (graver or gouge) engraving, notably on copper
C3 = Etching, including direct (brush) etching
C4 = Drypoint, including crayon manner and stipple engraving
C5 = Aquatint
C6 = Soft-ground or sugar etching
C7 = Mezzotint
C8 = Intaglio engraving on linoleum, plastic or other materials
Reproductive
P3 = Heliogravure (manual line and tone photogravure), photogalvanography
P4 = Commercial photogravure, rotogravure
P10 = Etched steel printing (die-printing)

Relief printing techniques
Original
X = Relief printing (blank)
X1 = Woodcut
X2 = Wood engraving
X3 = Linocut
X4 = (Chinese) stone stamp
X5 = Relief-printed engraved or etched metal plates, notably metal cut
X6 = Relief-printed engraving of other materials, notably plastic
Reproductive
T = Typography, letterpress
T1 = Linotype, monotype, indirect letterpress
T2 = Photoxylography, facsimile wood engraving   

ModernIntaglioPrintmakingArtsbyAndrewLevitskyModernIntaglioPrintmakingArts by Andrew Levitsky 2010