“COLORS OF MEMORY”: This artist book created with laser cut woodblock and collograph plates is featured in “Reflections: Artist Books and Works on Paper by Maria G. Pisano,” on view at the Plainsboro Library gallery through July 31. An artist reception is Sunday, July 14 from 2 to 4 p.m.

The Plainsboro Library Gallery presents artist books and works on paper by award-winning artist and Plainsboro resident Maria G. Pisano in “Reflections.” The exhibit runs through July 31, and an art reception will be held on Sunday, July 14, 2 to 4 p.m., with the artist on hand to speak about her work.

Pisano’s prints are a combination of collagraph plates and/or monotypes. Her artist books combine a variety of expressive forms, including drawing, painting, print and printmaking media, papermaking, text, and book design, making the book structure a complex and unique form of expression.

The book titled Colors of Memory was created with laser cut woodblock and collograph plates, and relief printed. It is housed in a box made from cherry wood with laser cut title and designs. Pisano says it “presents four environments, Primavera, Estate, Autunno, and Inverno, with accompanying poems, tracing the natural patterns of the seasons. Each season is a marker, beginning with Primavera, a time of discovery and self-awareness and ending with Inverno, a time of fragility, loss and death.”

Pisano describes both the medium and her artistic viewpoint: “My art is colored with memories and the places I’ve lived in. The works in this exhibit — works on paper and artist books — reflect a journey on the various influences and themes recurring in the works, showcasing the constant search and gathering of layers of experiences. The resulting landscape is one of continual flux where colors, patterns, wear and tear, all speak of time, memory, and history. As memories accumulate they are selected, organized and stored within. Accessing these visual echoes, finding these markers I allow imagination to manipulate them.”

“My principal mode of expression is through printmaking and the artist book, which are published under the Memory Press imprint,” she continues. “As a book artist, I am continuing the tradition of books as keepers of our collective memory, using the format, in its myriad transformative powers, to express and reflect my world. As an artist, I bring forth works that respond to a theme through structure as well as text and image. My book works may seem to challenge the traditional form that we are familiar with today, but if one looks at the long history of the book, these storehouses of knowledge were and are varied in materials and structure in every culture.”

Pisano is a book artist, printmaker, curator, and educator. Over the years, she has had solo exhibits alongside numerous group shows here and abroad. She has curated a number of exhibits, the most recent “Book as Witness: The Artist’s Response” at the Center for Book Arts in NYC. Pisano contributes to book arts publications and has given illustrated lectures at the Library of Congress, College Book Arts Association, and the Art Libraries Society of North America.

The Plainsboro Library is located at 9 Van Doren Street, Plainsboro. For more information, call (609) 275-2897.