BELFAST — Local Color Gallery welcomes woodcut printmaker David Morgan as a guest artist for a show beginning Wednesday, March 27. There will be an opening reception on Friday, March 29, from 5 to 7 p.m., including a short artist talk at 5 p.m.

Morgan's work has been shown and won awards in many venues around the United States and in Japan, Peru, and the United Kingdom. He moved to Maine from New Mexico in 2013, and opened his print studio, the Merrymeeting Press, in Bath in 2015.

His career in art began with photography when it was still done with silver and light (but in the dark), went on to include woodcarving, furniture making, and some fascinating detours like working as an archaeologist in England. There he discovered medieval sculpture which inspired him to start carving and making prints from similar designs on scraps of wood in his cabinet shop. He still carves and prints medieval-inspired designs, though now he finds visual delight here in the contemporary world as well.

Making prints has always attracted him, ever since his early days as a photographer. 

“The alchemy of printmaking has always fascinated me,” said Morgan, in a Local Color news release. ”It transmutes a visual idea through the crucibles of drawing, carving, inking, and printing into a finished image that holds some surprises for its maker, and hopefully some delight for its viewer. The very indirectness of making prints – carving first (backwards), then patiently adding color and shape in many layers, not knowing what it will finally look like till the end of the process - invites the unexpected, in contradiction, you might think, to its technical demands. Playing with that contradiction is part of my creative process.”

In addition to the opening reception and artist talk on Friday, March 29, Morgan will offer a woodcut printmaking workshop on “Print Day in May” on Saturday, May 4. More information will be available soon.

Local Color Gallery is located at 135 High Street, Belfast, Maine. www.localcolorgallerymaine.org; 207-218-1249.