KAHULUI >> The changing world of nature, as told through the contemporary world of printmaking, rises out of the ink and takes unusual shape in the newest exhibition at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center.

It’s not always pretty.

Eight artists from around the nation — all of them university-level educators — were selected to participate in this thinking person’s showcase, titled “Statements on Nature: A Survey of Printmaking Today.” The eight pieces, one from each artist, in the Schaefer International Gallery range from unfurled accordion books transforming into melting icebergs to a floating mass of invasive species.

“We told the artists we wanted them to make statements about nature and their concerns about nature,” said gallery director Neida Bangerter. “They were invited to explore nature through political views and what’s going on in the world today.”

Bangerter began planning the show years ago in consultation with Charles Cohan, head of the printmaking department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who has had a long involvement with the arts community on Maui as well as the national printmaking community. Invitations were extended to seven artists nationally to join Cohan for the exhibition. All accepted on the spot.

Cohan said it’s no surprise that the show has an “activist” feel to it.

“Printmaking has a history of political activism,” he said. “I’m an activist teacher. You’ve got to have issues. You just don’t make pretty images.”

Cohan’s contribution, “Samish,” consists of 11 unframed woodcut prints of a stand of dying black cherry trees that had been on his family’s property on Samish Island, Wash., since 1920. The trees — shown in stark silhouette — were infected by a fungus that settled into joints of the limbs, resulting in a type of “arthritis for trees,” said Cohan.

A special room was created in the gallery to display the prints, turning the space into a forest. The thick layers of black ink used to create the trees – Cohan said he used 1-1/2 pounds of ink on each print – give the limbs and trunks a 3-D feel. The trees seem to be screaming against a yellowing sky.

A NEW VISION of printmaking is apparent in the first piece viewers encounter upon entering the gallery. Jenene Nagy’s “delicate monument” does not hang on the wall. Instead, it’s more of a sculpture, with three oil monoprints on silk draped on cones and perched on a white platform to capture the melt rate of icebergs in a way printmakers usually don’t.

“It’s exciting that we have three pieces in this exhibition that are literally off the wall,” said Bangerter.

Another piece, perhaps the most striking in the show, is the 31-foot panorama by Nicole Pietrantoni. It demands one’s attention not only because of its size, but also in its beauty and the soothing pastels that belie the message of the effects of global warming — again, using icebergs.

Pietrantoni produced 30 accordion-style books, all but one attached to a small shelf 8 feet above and allowed to spill to the floor in soft folds. When viewed from a distance, the panels collectively turn into a riveting landscape. When examined more closely, words of poetry and science are etched across the scene.

“It’s a showstopper,” said Bangerter.

April Flanders, meanwhile, considered the consequences of globalization by making cutouts of invasive species arranged on the wall in a mass that brings to mind the plastic trash islands that are thought to have formed in the Pacific. Laura Berman focused on exploding supernovas, Karen Kunc’s richly colored abstracts jump off the paper and Jenny Schmid seems to simply be searching for a nature that’s disappearing. Her etching of a mermaid, typing on a laptop in rising seas near an island heaped with discarded electronics, doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

Koichi Yamamoto uses two traditional forms of printmaking — intricately detailed copper engravings on top of broadly stroked monotypes — to create a most nontraditional piece. His five panels evoke deep emotions as he examines not only the relationship of humans with nature, but humans with one another.

“We must respect nature because it gives us life and if it is mistreated it can take our lives away,” he writes in a statement that accompanies the piece. “We need the stability of human relationships so as to be able to explore nature and through this exploration we create beautiful things in human minds.”