These three pieces are some of my work with the late Sheila Marbain at Maurel Studio. It was a great experience for me to work with her and engage in the magic made possible by painting and drawing on silkscreen. These three silkscreen monoprints were made between 2004 and 2007. Each one of a kind. Additional works with her are to be found in a permanent installation in Brooklyn New York.

A little history: Sheila Marbain was a master printer who created prints for artists through Maurel Studios. She came to prominence during the Pop Art Movement, and printed for artists like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Marisol, William Wegman, and Helen Frankenthaler. During 1994 and early 1995 Sheila Marbain collaborated with these artists at her silkscreen workshop. They developed a new technique which they called silk monoprinting. They chose this name because the prints have a coloration and a textural beauty typical of silk itself but not of silkscreening as most people know it. The approach is very direct and simple. Marbain prepared a screen with a large open area using high grade silk.

The artists use a wide variety of materials directly on the screen. In these prints, I used charcoal, inks and stencils. This process allowed the work to be either spontaneous or meticulous. It might be a free moving oil stick drawing with strokes of oil paint, or it might be a tonal drawing made of layers of hatching and scribbling with crayons and soft pencils. Handled like drawing, it has the look of drawing on fine stretched silk which is what it actually is at that point. The magic is completed when a clear or tinted wax medium was used to transform the drawing-on-silk into the print-on-paper. The secret of the wax medium was nothing less than the experience and skill of Master Printer Sheila Marbain. Reference: Samia A. Halaby’s at www.art.net

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Marbain