“In the Smithy” (detail; 2011), a multimedia image by Greg Shattenberg.

A Maine artist who uses diverse media to explore the use of language as a visual element, Greg Shattenberg shows prints and drawings in a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art exhibition that opens with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, April 10, in the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

The museum and its events are open to the public at no cost. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and until 7 p.m. Wednesdays during the academic year. For more information, please contact 207-786-6158 or museum@bates.edu.

Greg Shattenberg: Prints and Drawings is on view in the museum’s Synergy Space through May 30. Showing through the same period is the college’s annual Senior Exhibition, this year featuring art by 11 studio art majors working in photography, ceramics, painting, drawing and other media.

Shattenberg, of Auburn, is an accomplished printmaker who, over the years, has experimented with a wide variety of printing methods — from woodcut, etching and lithography to photographic processes such as collotype and color copy transfer. The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ exhibition comprises works from the last 20 years that showcase his use of letterpress techniques to complement his images.

As a young artist studying painting and drawing, Shattenberg felt frustrated when he couldn’t realize his original ideas for images, and felt constrained by the conventional processes of image making. In response to these dissatisfactions, Shattenberg introduced writing into his drawings.

He recalls, “It was unsettling to look at the piece and realize the writing was more interesting than the drawing.”

In the process he has since developed, Shattenberg introduces text improvisationally after completing an image, building upon and adding to the context of the artwork. Through the careful selection of language, form and typeface, he explores the use of printed words and phrases as aesthetic elements as much as for their emotional or narrative contributions to his imagery.

He readily admits that combining language with imagery presents its own set of constraints. Language is inherently cerebral and its presence in Shattenberg’s images creates a tension with the visual sensuality of his drawings and prints.

“Images with language are an impossible fit,” he says. “They do not naturally go together and do not function singularly.” There’s also risk in printing text on top of artworks, because the wrong creative solution can ruin a carefully worked image.

For Shattenberg, however, the practice of layering text on top of imagery is a dynamic and revitalizing process in which the opportunities far outweigh the risks.

Printmaker and teacher Hideki Kimura.

Japanese printmaking is the focus of a current exhibition at the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art and of a lecture at the college at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

Japanese Printmaking, Yesterday and Today, the lecture by artist and teacher Hideki Kimura, is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-8212.

Kimura, who teaches printmaking at Kyoto (Japan) City University of Arts, co-curated the exhibition Redefining the Multiple: 13 Japanese Printmakers,” showing at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ through Dec. 14. Kimura also presents work in the exhibition.

This lecture is part of a residency at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ by Kimura and Redefining the Multiple co-curator Sam Yates, director of the Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture at the University of Tennessee, where the show originated. At ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, they will meet with students involved in art, Japanese studies and museum operations.

Hideki Kimura, “Glass 2011-11-27,” acrylic ink squeegeed onto glass.

The residency and public lecture are supported by the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Learning Associates Program.

The adventurous printmakers in Redefining The Multiple expand traditional concepts of what printmaking is and what form a print or multiple may take. They explore a wide array of imagery through contemporary and historic techniques and media. Media represented in the show include etching, aquatint, monotype, screen printing, photographic processes, woodcut and three-dimensional work in felt, cast resin and video.

Kimura creates monotypes that investigate translucence and opacity by squeegeeing acrylic onto glass. His work is in numerous collections including the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, the Warsaw National Museum in Poland, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Kimura is the founder of the artists’ group MAXI GRAPHICA, and recently served as president for the Committee of Art for Print Studies in Japan. He studied oil painting and printmaking at Kyoto City University of Arts, and completed independent research at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Fine Art.

Also showing at the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art through Dec. 14 is Selections from Berenice Abbott’s ‘Portrait of Maine,’ ” comprising images from the museum collection that Abbott, a Maine resident and well-known 20th-century American photographer, made for her last book, 1968’s A Portrait of Maine.

The museum is open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and until 7 p.m. Wednesdays while ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is in session. Admission is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-6158.

Koichi Kiyono’s “Cultivation II,” etching on cotton-wool and felt with hand sewing, appears in the Museum of Art exhibition “Redefining The Multiple: 13 Japanese Printmakers.”

Images of Maine by famed 20th-century photographer Berenice Abbott and prints by Japanese artists known for pushing the boundaries of printmaking media will be exhibited this fall at the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art.

Opening Sept. 13 and showing through Dec. 14 are the exhibitions Redefining The Multiple: 13 Japanese Printmakers and Selections from Berenice Abbott’s “Portrait of Maine.“

Hideki Kimura, whose work is represented in the print show and who co-curated it with Sam Yates, director of the University of Tennessee’s Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture, where the show originated, discusses the exhibition at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, in the museum. A reception follows.

“Balancing Act” (c. 1965), gelatin silver print by Berenice Abbott. Museum purchase.

The Abbott images were published in her 1968 book A Portrait of Maine, and the original photographs in Selections were acquired for the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ museum’s permanent collection from 2005 to 2007.

The exhibitions mark the reopening of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art following a summer spent installing a new, state-of-the-art LED lighting system designed to both reduce the museum’s environmental footprint and improve the museum viewing experience for visitors.

The museum is open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and until 7 p.m. Wednesdays during the academic year. For more information, please call 207-786-6158.

• Learn more about Redefining the Multiple: 13 Japanese Printmakers.
• Learn more about Selections from Berenice Abbott’s “Portrait of Maine.”

Jenkins discusses the process of printmaking on May 4 and the current on May 11. Kim will talk about artist Marsden Hartley on May 18. All talks are open to the public and will be held in the upper level of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Museum of Art, Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. For more information, please call 207-786-6158.

Jenkins’ first talk seeks to illuminate the often-mysterious mediums of silkscreen and lithography. Focusing on a small group of works from the collection and using a PowerPoint presentation, the talk will detail the processes of each medium step by step. The goal is to enable viewers to better to visualize the evolution of a work, and better appreciate the amount of work put into making prints.

Jenkins will next focus on a tour of the Senior Exhibition. The talk includes information on the yearlong thesis process required of art majors, an overview of the organization and installation of the show, and insights into Jenkins’ and her co-exhibitors’ art.

Finally, Kim will talk about artist Marsden Hartley, based on research she conducted during a museum internship. Born in Lewiston, Hartley is recognized as one of America’s greatest modernist painters. Kim will explore Hartley’s wanderings and his unique vision that emerged from his relationship with nature and human interactions.

The public is invited to attend Abeles’ talk and view the exhibit free of charge. Regular museum hours are Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday 1 5 p.m. Guided tours for schools and other groups are welcome. Call 207-786 6158 for more information.

“Abeles is a magnificent artist whose prints are highly regarded for their extremely refined figure drawing and emotionally charged narratives and portraits,” said Genetta McLean, director of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art and curator of the exhibition. “The exhibition celebrates Abeles’ establishment of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art as a repository of his print archives. This is an extraordinary gift, which has provided our community with an important legacy of American printmaking.”

Abeles’ achievements in printmaking have been formally acknowledged as early as 1965 when he received an Arts and Letters Award and grant from the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters for “etchings that pierce the comforting screen and reveal man in all his naked helplessness.” Abeles taught at the University of New Hampshire from 1970 to 1987 and now serves as professor emeritus of art. He also teaches painting at the Art Students League in New York City.

Abeles’ work is in many distinguished museums and collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Boston Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. He also has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including a retrospective at the Boston Public Library in 1993. His work continues to receive honorary distinctions, including election to the National Academy of Design in 1990.

Visitors to the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ exhibition will see Abeles’ finest prints, including a portfolio of etchings and drypoints called “Toward the End,” the artist’s poignant farewell to dying loved ones. His award-winning color lithograph “Day Lily” will be shown, as well as the major print “The Entrance,” a full-length figure standing in a doorway, which received the Leo Meissner Prize for intaglio in 1983.

Van Vliet is a distinguished recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and, as the owner and founder of the Janus Press, is widely known as a leading force in the production of artists’ books. This exhibition, curated by Genetta McLean, director of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art, is drawn extensively from the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art’s collection and provides the first opportunity to see a retrospective survey of Van Vliet’s black and white landscape prints.

Throughout her career, Van Vliet has been fascinated by landscapes shaped by powerful geological forces that feature major rock formations. She particularly favors regions in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, where boulders stand isolated against the sky.

“I am attracted to places where the land and rocks are bare either because of extreme dryness or because they are coastal,” Van Vliet said. “In New Zealand the beaches have unusual formations because it is a complex young land geologically with active volcanoes and plates sliding in opposite directions.”

Places closer to home are also represented in a new body of work– six lithographs that convey the silent eeriness of the area around Van Vliet’s home near Wheeler Mountain in northern Vermont.

Van Vliet was born in Ottawa, Canada, and was influenced by early 20th century Canadian landscape painters called the Group of Seven.

“As schoolchildren,” Van Vliet recalls, “we were very aware of these painters, so it meant that one could live in the wilds and also be an artist. I think that was very important; that art could be made in Canada in the 20th century and wasn’t just something European and historical.”

In Black and White: Landscape Prints by Claire Van Vliet will be on display from Jan. 15 through March 19 and is funded by the Richard Florsheim Art Fund and Champion Glass, Lewiston, Maine.

Regular hours at the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art are Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Guided tours for schools and other groups are welcome. Call 207-786-6158 for more information.