Fluctuations Print Exchange
Fluctuations Print Exchange
Opening Reception: October 11, 7-10 pm
On View: October 11 – November 2, 2013
See Photo Gallery from the Opening
Featuring the nineteen artists selected to participate in Recession Art’s printmaking portfolio exchange– Fluctuations. The works included in this exhibition, correspond to limited edition prints, created by each artist for the sake of exchanging with each other.
The Fluctuations portfolio highlights artists working directly with printmaking processes, and also artists working with print concepts. The consideration of producing multiples, and the processes investigated in doing so, make Fluctuationsboth an exercise in coproduction and experimentation. With the help of our guest jurors Kyle Simon and Jon Irving, Fluctuations was curated to give representation to various contemporary and traditional artistic approaches, studio practices and interpretations of our theme.
Fluctuations is a portfolio consisting of original works by John Redmann, Matthew Scott Gualco, Ali Reid, Pierre Chaumont, Jennifer Dayton, Matthew Wilson, Henry Gepfer, Jonathan Sherrill, Namwoo Bae, Andrew Salomone, Slavko Djuric, Heidi Lau, Owen Roberts, Jennifer Dwyer, Lisa Wicka, Anna Robinson-Sweet, Yujin Lee, Mary Pinto, and Sarah Nicole Phillips.
About the Artists
John Redmann – is a Brooklyn based artist and designer, who received his degree from Pratt in 2005. While John Redmann works professionally as a designer, his claims that his work is “rooted in printmaking.” Redmann’s contribution to Fluctuations is a continuation of his exploration of the images associated with Hermes scarves and handkerchiefs. The cultural significance of these objects, especially the symbolism they have played in suggesting certain personal preferences, are some of the basic inspirations for Redmann’s current investigations.
Matthew Scott Gualco – San Francisco Art Institute, MFA alumni Matthew Scott Gualco creates work “that forms an allusive hybrid between drawing and literature by interjecting the subject matter with literature and symbols.” Working primarily in book formats, creating works on his 1970s letter press, Gualco plays with both traditional formatting techniques and the usage of contemporary and identifiable text symbols. Gualco claims that these symbols “act as both decoys and stage directions to compel the viewer/reader to determine for themselves whether these dashes, arrows and symbols serve a particular semiotic purpose or whether they may simply be placeholders, abstract glyphs alluding to some modern day Rosetta Stone.” Included in the Fluctuations portfolio, are selections from Matthew Scott Gualco’s Wingding Opus.
Ali Reid – Ali Reid is a writer, artist, and educator in Worcester, MA. Her teaching and studio practices are guided by the principle that creative practices can be rigorous methods of learning as well as production. Included in our portfolio is a letterpress print by Reid entitled Community Multiplies. Using a combination of lead typeset blocks, and relief techniques, Reid’s print humorously induces feelings related to camaraderie, and unity in her creation of an iconographic “logo” of a two headed horse, juxtaposed by the latin phrase Convocare Laborare, literally translating to “Assembling Work.”
Pierre Chaumont- Chaumont was born in Libourne, France and currently works out of Montreal, Canada and Tokyo, Japan. Chaumont says that his work “is a mix between the awareness of my existence and that feeling of capacity that being an artist brings…My themes are directly chosen from the unconscious link I share with them and throughout my work. I want to create experiences, being able to make my pieces resonate on a conceptual or physical level.” For our portfolio Chaumont has created an edition of embossment on paper. These very subtle, and delicate pieces, contain a colorless impression of a geometric design and text created by the artist. Relating to our theme of ‘fluctuating,’ Chaumont’s piece Between Us, highlights the very idea of relations amongst artists and participants.
Jennifer Dayton – Brooklyn based artist Jennifer Dayton uses vintage images from literary and film sources to collage fantastical landscapes. Dayton has worked with various media throughout her career including studio photography, cut and paste collage, silkscreen printing, photo-animation and is currently working on a series of collage inspired, large scale acrylic paintings on canvas . She is half of the collaborative duo GEEMONFIN. Dayton’s edition Red Sun challenges certain conventions of printing large editions given the unique quality of each print. In actuality, Dayton’s edition is comprised of all uniquely re-imagined compositions of basic collage elements.
Matthew Wilson- A selection of Matthew Wilson’s artist statement reads as follows; “The sound is made by a million impacts, a million minute abrasions…long, flattened oviods about a hand’s length.To pick up a rock from this beach and examine it is to examine hundreds of years of the chattering tide.” Wilson’s work explores the themes of transit, chaos and minimalism. Using repetitive mark making and scraping techniques, Wilson’s drypoint print included in our portfolio, highlights a still moment which occurs after an entity endures prolonged motion. Given our prompt, Wilson asks the question “if everything is in flux, can fluctuation itself end?”
Henry Gepfer - Gepfer claims that his work is largely concerned with how society reads “unspoken cues,” especially in body language. Gepfer focuses on the idea of “manhood,” and finds that negotiating manhood is a performative give and take. The seemingly arbitrary fluctuation between acceptable and unacceptable activity, seem to be at the essence of Gepfer’s work included in our portfolio. As a whole, Henry Gepfer’s work has roots in observations of graphic language and print media. Gepfer recieved his BSE from Millersville University, Millersville, PA.
Jonathan Sherrill – received his MFA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2012. Since then, he has been continuously working on his practices including painting, drawing and printmaking in Asheville. Sherrill’s contribution to our portfolio is quite unique. Sherrill’s prints use a transfer method using solvents. The images of electronic schematics have been digitally altered, and then further changed through the imprecise, and chaotic process of transferring. Sherrill claims that “I often use the transfer not only as a way to print but as a way to make marks moving in and out of control and expression. The result of the transfer can not be fully predicted and I do not try but rather adapt as I allow it to fluctuate.”
Namwoo Bae – received his MFA in Digital + Media at Rhode Island School of Design. Bae’s piece, Curtain III tells a narrative of seeking more complex hidden patterns, structures and undercurrents in digital forms. Connected to both a personal experience of grieving, and inspiration given from x-ray analysis of 20th century paintings, Bae’s print remains our only strictly digital piece in our portfolio. This image comes out of a series of works reviewed by Luxury In Progress. Curtain III is supplemented by a sound portion, which can be found on Bae’s Soundcloud.
Andrew Salomone- is originally from Southern California. Andrew Salomone received an MFA from the National University of Ireland and exhibited throughout the Republic of Ireland. He’s lectured on internet art practice at Parsons the New School for Design and worked in The Museum of Art and Design’s Open Studio Program. His current work is made by using a modified, electronic knitting machine, originally intended to make home textile production take up less space. Salomone’s equipment contains custom modifications which allow him to control textile patterns from his computer. Andrew Salomone’s work allows a viewer to understand the often overlooked connection between traditions in textile production, and the developments leading up to the creation of the pixel.
Slavko Djuric - recieved his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Prishtina University, Kosovo, Serbia in 1979. While in Serbia, Djuric trained in all methods of traditional printmaking, learning first, the most important aspects of fine art editioning. Djuric moved to New York City in 2006, where he still resides and works. Djuric’s approach to printmaking has loosened up since his days of working in traditional processes. His edition in our show, also questions the idea of what it means to create a formal edition. Using printmaking techniques such as relief, digital, as well as cutting, and illustration, Djuric is producing a series of recombined collages consisting of editioned elements in hopes of creating a dialogue between the artist, the viewer, and all recipients of his work.
Heidi Lau - grew up in Macau and is currently based in Queens. Heidi Lau has exhibited her work at Wave Hill, Curious Matter, Manhattan Graphic Center, Field Projects, A.I.R. Gallery, TSA New York and New House Center of Contemporary Art. For our exchange, Lau is producing an edition of prints which she describes as “depicting the constant fluctuations of cosmic energies.” Her process encompasses using sculptural mark making elements, in an approach which mostly resembles monotype. Heidi is also an avid sculptor and ceramicist, and is currently an artist in residence at Emmanuel College in Boston.
Owen Roberts- is a performer/artist based in Brooklyn and a recent graduate from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. His work uses emerging technologies to explore interpersonal relations amongst people via media. Robert’s work for this portfolio interprets the idea of fluctuating, as a material shift within his piece from digital to analogue. Using the prototype of his Monster Cat, the subject of Roberts piece traverses a matrix of cryptic language symbols, while transforming in the process.
Jennifer Dwyer – grew up in Northern California and attended University of Washington for Ceramics and Environmental Science. Dwyer uses dark-room photography in conjunction with photogravure to create austere, monochromatic prints. Dwyer is interested in people, and their relationships with their environment, or the conversation between with society and nature. Our portfolio will contain a print from Dwyer’s series Dead Beat Angels. Jennifer Dwyer lives and works in Brooklyn. She describes herself as a “dreamer,” which undoubtedly is expressed through the sublime images created in her printmaking and photography.
Lisa Wicka – received her MFA from Purdue University and her BFA from the University of Central Florida. Her work has shown both nationally and internationally; most recently her work was exhibited in the Andy Warhol Museum, featured on Printeresting.org and in Studio Visit Magazine, Volume 21. Wicka’s work deconstructs architectural spaces, along with images of people, more specifically the human face. In her process of reconstruction, Wicka creates a set of relationships between these two subjects. Wicka is contributing an edition of multiple plate intaglio prints to our exchange.
Anna Robinson-Sweet – growing up in Brooklyn. As she watched her neighborhood transform, she became interested in how one attaches emotion to buildings and architectural structures and landmarks. Her work focuses on how the idea of “collective memory” is historicized, or not preserved, within architecture and monuments. Her most recent project, National Register of Historic Places, was exhibited at Bushwick Print Lab and received wide-spread coverage in Time Out NY and Hyperallergic. The project resonates with just about all native New Yorkers. Sweet will be in a way preserving the image of several pieces of architecture in her hand tinted silkscreen edition, premiering in our portfolio.
Yujin Lee – received her BFA from Cornell University in 2009. After having spent some time living in Berlin, Germany, Lee has returned to the states to work on her MFA in Printmaking at Columbia University. Lee has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions in Korea, Germany, and the US. Her work is archived at SOMA Drawing Center in Seoul and Berlinerpool Archive in Berlin. For Fluctuations Lee has chosen to use the subject of a certain kind of traditional Korean mask for an edition of photogravure prints. The idea of wearing such a mask directly engages the idea of how an identity might ‘fluctuate’ based on appearance, or through the process of acting.
Mary Pinto – is a dark-room photographer who uses photogram techniques to produce one of a kind, color photo prints. Pinto has exhibited at the Hofstra University Museum, the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, St. Thomas Aquinas College and Safe-T-Gallery; in Spain, at Spectrum Gallery, L’Angelot Contemporary Art Association and Canal de Isabel II. Pinto’s contribution to our portfolio is unique given that she is the only participant to use strictly photographic processes. Her edition of “photo-monoprints” comes out of a series called 99¢ Botanicals. In contemplating our theme, Mary Pinto asked the question “in giving and receiving, is there always a price?”
Sarah Nicole Phillips – received her B.A, from the University of Toronto in 2003 and her MFA from Brooklyn College in 2006. From 2006-07 she participated in a residency at the Lower Eastside Printshop where she continues to teach. In 2012 she was awarded a residency at The Blue Mountain Center. She has been included in shows at the Queens Museum of Art in New York, the International Print Center New York, and BAM. In 2009 she received a Brooklyn Arts Council grant. Phillips has interpreted our theme by executing a four-color silkscreen print of an ATM machine, fused to what appears to be an outhouse, in a sense creating the blueprints for what could become a very successful business idea.
Image: Namwoo Bae, The Curtain III.