ON first glance, you think that you are looking at the froth of a wave as it breaks on the shore, but upon closer inspection of the print, it becomes apparent that you are in fact being presented with a magnified image of human cornea tissue. Such is the nature of Patricia Olynyk's work- last year's first-prize winner of the world art annual print festival.
This year sees the fourth annual World Art Print Festival on show at the Lessedra Gallery, Lozenets. With 552 artists from 61 countries taking part, the exhibition certainly warrants its `world art' title. Not only do the entries represent a diverse range of nationalities; the styles and subject matter of the prints themselves are extremely varied, ranging from the traditional, through the surreal and fantastic to the provocative.
Georgi Kolev is the man behind the project, as both the exhibition organiser and gallery owner. "Four years ago we had 20 artists from 10 countries taking part", says Georgi of the first print exhibition. These numbers have grown dramatically as word has spread by word of mouth and also, most significantly, by internet, to the point where now artists willingly pay an entrance fee to take part in the event, where their prints compete eagerly for wall space in the gallery.
The gallery, named after ancient ruins in Georgi's home village of Lessidren, was opened especially for the start of the exhibition on March 31 this year. Georgi and his wife Valia undertook the challenge of turning half of their home into a gallery and the resulting second-floor space has been well worth the effort.
This year saw nine special guest artists from countries including Japan, the US, Canada and the UK making an appearance for the exhibition's opening. For many, it was their first trip to Bulgaria. The artists took the opportunity to visit Bulgaria's Rila Monastery, as well as to forge and strengthen bonds with Bulgarian artists.
British pop artist Brian Jones, who has worked with the likes of Jamie Reid of Sex Pistols fame, took the chance to visit the Union of Bulgarian Artists. Marie Bukowski, Assistant Professor of Art at Louisiana Technical University and Patricia Olynyk, Director of the Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Visitors' Programme at The University of Michigan, visited Sofia's Academy of Arts where they discussed the possibility of future exchanges of art and artists with their universities. If this were to happen, it would be the first time something of this calibre had taken place at the university and it would also be the first time it had collaborated with Bulgaria, said Marie.
Patricia, who has spent four years living in Japan - this year's guest nation at the festival in Bulgaria - draws a parallel between the print art of the two countries: "attention to craftsmanship and evidence of the hand in the work is very important," she says of Bulgarian printmaking, while "Japanese work also honoured an ability to manipulate the medium, but also to leave evidence of the hand of the artist". On the other hand, she says that the US is currently experiencing "the allure of digital technologies". This leads us into a discussion of "the big debate" in printmaking concerning the use of traditional versus digital methods.
An artist first and foremost, Patricia's work has brought her into the arena of science through her interest in the senses, and she uses the most up to date scientific technology in the production of her prints. In this sense, her work embodies the issue surrounding the place of digital technology in printmaking and stands as testament to her argument that this, in fact, should not be an issue at all if it used responsibly. She argues that technology is not going to be "de-invented", and that if you "take it on your own terms", and manipulate it to your own ends, rather than it being a form of manipulation as an end in itself, then there is no reason that the use of digital methods should be perceived as a form of "abuse" in printmaking.
Patricia explains that it is misuse of technology that has led to current arguments, and that this must be weighed against its capabilities as a tool. As long as its use is clearly defined, then its role as simply a tool is clear, acceptable and beneficial. As this technology is now a fact, then its responsible use is key to the responsible development of the field and all-encompassing rebuttals of its use are ultimately futile and Luddite in nature.
In her series of prints: cenesthesia, which she describes as "the body's awareness of its self in space," Patricia uses a scanning electron micrograph (SEM) to photograph "sights of sensation on the body". As Patricia wants to highlight the idea that "being sensate is not a uniquely human experience", she takes representatives from the animal kingdom as her subjects, photographing a guinea pig's cochlea, a fruit fly's `foot' and a wild mouse's tastebud.  The resulting monoprints are over-laid with schematics taken from historical books on themes of science. So, ultramodern technology is coupled with older modes of understanding. Both are linked in the shared goal of recording and understanding that is an innate human characteristic - the modes of which may have changed over the decades and centuries, but the essence of which, the desire to record and create meaning and coherence - remains the same.
The cenesthesia prints are successful in their exploration of the experience of sensation- enlarged images of fly's feet shown in minute detail with hairs protruding from the skin often provoke a sensory reaction in the viewer: both a revulsion, but also a compulsion to scrutinise or even to touch the prints, whose vivid images leap off the paper, with a tangible essence guaranteed to scintillate and tickle the senses.

Patricia's cenesthesia exhibition will be at The Lessedra Gallery from July 6 to August 1.
The World Art Print Festival continues until Sunday July 3 at the Lessedra Gallery, 25 Milin Kamak Str, Loznets. Tel: 865 0428. www.lessedra.com

Patricia Olynyk's solo exhibition opens on July 6.