Rewriting the Master Narrative | Arts + Literature Laboratory | Madison Contemporary Arts Center

Rewriting the Master Narrative

ALL is excited to present Rewriting the Master Narrative, a national juried exhibition of recent work by 25 artists from across the country focused on how printmaking can challenge the paradigms we live with and expand the stories we collectively tell. The exhibition is juried by Deborah Maris Lader, printmaker and the founder/director of the Chicago Printmakers Collective. There will be an opening reception from 7-9pm on Saturday, August 4, 2018. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

Printmaking has always been revolutionary as a technology and an art form. As technology, it transformed the way we share information and democratized literacy and education. As art, it has become a platform for different people to make their voices heard and expand our definitions of culture.

Printmaking has always ridden the line between works crafted by hand and works done by replicable form. There is inevitable tension in the power that print can give. On the one hand, it gives access to many people to tell their rare and special stories. On the other, it requires a template in order to share widely with the masses. For this reason, we must be mindful of the stories we elevate and emulate. From religion (Jesus, Buddha), to mythology (Odysseus, Hercules), to pop culture (Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins)—names and faces may change, but stories (and storytellers) often stay the same.

When the stories we share begin to look alike, what’s the role of the maker of the matrix? When we live in an era where we need not just different faces, but different story arcs that prove different outcomes, what is the role of the storyteller who creates what others will share?

Juror’s Statement: Deborah Maris Lader

Historically, printmaking has provided a means of disseminating ideas that span from the mundane to the emotional and political, due to its unique ability to present an image as a multiple. This positions the print as an accessible and affordable means of being viewed, shared and owned by many, and offers a way for isolated artists or marginalized communities to be seen and therefore heard through the broadcast of their images. These pictures are like stories: they’re passed along, adapted and modified through the act of repetition, journeying beyond the borders from their place of origin. Today, we have become a global network of connected makers rooted in a community that shares a passion for things inked, rolled, drawn, pressed and pulled.

In jurying the work for Rewriting the Master Narrative, I was looking at the proverbial BIG PICTURE, the long view, the matrix as seen from outer space. I chose images that stood out both individually and as a group, and I paid particular attention to variety, both in method used and subject matter. The stories these prints tell remind us that it’s our differences and unique visions that truly unite us and must be celebrated and embraced.

As a whole, the work submitted was very strong, and some choices were made based on the Arts + Literature Laboratory space and mission, along with an eye towards representing a wide range of print mediums that were both traditional and experimental. I was honored to be able to review the prints of such capable and brilliant artists.
To conclude, I love the way prints LOOK. I am passionate about making, exhibiting and viewing  them. There is an intimacy to the hand drawn lithograph or a line incised in copper that is unique to the printmaking medium. The highly technical craft of the hand-made print is both a means and end to letting folks in on the secrets a beautifully crafted print might reveal. Like a story, these methods and images live on and connect us to one another, and continually rewrite the master narrative.

 

ABOUT THE JUROR

Deborah Maris Lader is the Founder/Director of the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative since 1989, and member of the touring indiefolk band, Sons of the Never Wrong. Deborah exhibits her prints, drawings, photography, and mixed media artwork internationally, and her work appears in many permanent collections, including the Chicago History Museum, the New York Public Library, and the City of Palo Alto. The Mid America Print Council awarded Outstanding Printmaker 2016 Deborah for her work and her contribution to the printmaking community. She was the featured speaker and solo exhibitor at the MAPC Conference in October 2016. Other awards for her service to the artistic community include "The 2007 Arts Advocate Award" from ArtWalk Ravenswood, "The 1999 Paul Berger Arts Entrepreneurship Award" given by Columbia College, Chicago, and "Cultural Contributor of the Year", presented to her by the Lincoln Square Chamber of Commerce in 2003. She is a former Board member of the Mid America Print Council, the Chicago Artists Coalition and the American Print Alliance.

Lynne Allen

Lynne Allen is Professor of Art and Director of the School of Visual Arts in the College of Fine Arts at Boston University since 2006. Previously she was a Professor of Art at Rutgers University from 1989 and Master Printer and Educational Director at Tamarind Institute from 1983-1987. Allen’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is included in collections at the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Modern Art Library; the New York Public Library, New York; the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C; and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Selected important exhibition venues include the Brooklyn Museum of Art “Digital Now” Print National, the Whitney Museum of American Art ‘New Editions’, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the James Michener Museum, PA. International exhibitions include the Guanlan Biennial, China; the 5th International Printmaking Biennial of Douro, Portugal; The Novosibirsk Print... Read More

Brett Anderson

Brett Anderson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville. Brett grew up in central Missouri, earning his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Missouri in 1999. He received his Master of Fine Arts from the University of South Dakota in 2002.

He has had solo exhibitions in Oregon, Arizona, California, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Missouri and participated in over 100 group exhibitions nationally over the past 10 years. Recently, Brett has been a visiting artist, leading workshops on relief printmaking techniques, at California State University, Stanislaus; at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC; and at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, in Odessa.

Curtis Bartone

Curtis Bartone’s work has been included in over 100 group exhibitions internationally, and in 22 solo exhibitions, most recently at the University of Alabama, Huntsville; Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston; Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia; and Alberta Printmakers in Canada. Bartone has been awarded residencies in the U.S. and abroad and has received several state and private institution grants. His work is included in numerous public and private collections. He received an MFA from Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois, and a BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design, in Columbus, Ohio. Currently, he resides in Savannah, Georgia with his wife and seven cats, where he makes prints and teaches printmaking at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Goldie Raye

Goldie Raye is a recent graduate from UW-Madison who studied printmaking, painting, and graphic design. Her print and illustration work conceptually focuses on gender identity and defining the female/queer gaze. But please, bring your sense of humor along for the ride.

This series depicts female figures in playful situations together, rerouting heterosexual oriented styles of early American illustration, drafting a new narrative to show art that was once steeped in the male gaze can exist too for femme lesbians. This series sheds much needed light on the femme or "lipstick" lesbian, and points out that her identity can be wrapped up in how she physically expresses her sensuality, acknowledging the influences of what we understand to be heterosexual male preference. Goldie Raye's art tries to make the point that women can find this same femininity sexual and appealing too; that we can even define ourselves by our desire to be a sexual object, a notion commonly demonized by... Read More

Tia Blassingame

Tia Blassingame is a book artist and printmaker exploring the intersection of race, history, and perception. Utilizing printmaking and book arts techniques, she renders racially-charged images and histories for a nuanced discussion on issues of race and racism. Blassingame holds a B.A. from Princeton University, M.A. from Corcoran College of Art + Design, and M.F.A. in Printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design. She has been an artist-in-residence at Yaddo and MacDowell Colony. Her artists' books and prints can be found in library and museum collections around the world including Stanford University, Library of Congress, University of California at Irvine, and Tate Britain. Her writing is featured in Freedom of the Presses: Artists' Books in the 21st Century, an upcoming Booklyn publication. Blassingame teaches Book Arts at Scripps College, and is the Director of Scripps College Press.

Cynthia Brinich-Langlois

Cynthia Brinich-Langlois grew up in Bethel, Alaksa, a small town on the Yukon-Kuskokwim river delta. After completing undergraduate studies in Studio Art and Environmental Biology at Kenyon College, she pursued an MFA in Printmaking from the University of New Mexico. While attending UNM, she participated in Land Arts of the American West and Tamarind Institute’s Collaborative Lithography program. She has exhibited her prints, drawings, books, and animations nationally and internationally, including at the Lannan Foundation Gallery in Santa Fe, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Purdue University Galleries, Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum, A1LabArts in Knoxville, Charles Allis Museum in Milwaukee, and Awagami Factory in Japan. Her work is included in the Iowa Print Archive at the University of Iowa, the SGCI archive at the Zuckerman Museum of Art, and the Center for Art + Environment collection at the Nevada Museum of Art. She has been an artist-in-residence at Elsewhere... Read More

Scott Espeseth

Scott Espeseth (b. 1975) is a nationally exhibiting artist working in Madison, WI. He earned an MFA in printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he worked with storied print artists such as Frances Myers and Warrington Colescott. His work has since evolved to focus mainly on drawing, usually with commonplace media such as graphite pencils and ballpoint pen. His drawings have been described as “clairvoyant,” often depicting familiar spaces charged with a sense of dark presence, or other instances where planes of existence clash: the future sending messages to the past, memory intruding upon the present, or the subconscious bleeding into consciousness. Scott has been on the faculty of Beloit College since 2002 teaching all levels of drawing and printmaking.

Oi Fortin

These prints are inspired by Matisse’s colorful paper cut collages. After studying his works, I wondered, "How can I bring the idea to Printmaking?" I am constantly experimenting in my studio with this in mind. It took me over a year of trying but I found a way to deliver the results in a way that is fun and addicting. Each print took a long time to finish due to number of layers for each color and shape; the hardest task was waiting for colors to dry between layers. It’s not in my nature to delay the gratification of making a monotype! As a result, working slowly, meditatively and purposefully is key for this series. I hope you find the same joy in these prints as I did in making them.

Katie Garth

Katie Garth is a printmaker and artist in Philadelphia, where she is pursuing an MFA at the Tyler School of Art (2020). Her works span a variety of media including letterpress, screenprinting, and etching. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2013 with concentrations in printmaking, book arts, and graphic design. She is interested in print’s relationship to the multiple and its capacity to function as a tool for social advocacy.

Jon Goebel

Jon Goebel is an avid printmaker-artist known for his symbolically charged artworks. He received his MFA in Printmaking from Texas Tech University and serves as Associate Professor of Art at the University of Hawaii Hilo. He has shown in over 150 exhibitions across the United States and abroad including Portugal, Mexico, China, Bulgaria, Argentina, Spain, South Korea, Canada, India, and Puerto Rico. Jon has also taught numerous color intaglio workshops across the Country and in China. Recent accolades for his work include: Graphic Chemical & Ink Purchase Award, The Boston Printmakers 2015 North American Printmaking Biennial, Lesley University College of Art and Design, Cambridge, MA; Purchase Award, Honolulu Printmakers 89th Annual Exhibition, Honolulu, HI; Artist of the Year, Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC; Best in Show, Paper in Particular, Columbia College, Columbia, MO; Purchase Prize, Ink, Press, Repeat, William Patterson University Galleries, Wayne, NJ; Purchase... Read More

Rachael Griffin

Rachael is an Ohio-born printmaker and painter who currently resides in Madison, Wisconsin. Her work, predominantly large-scale monotypes, always comes back to the human appetite. What is it that we like, and why do we like it? Her images of pastries, fruit, and meat are often icons of Americana, but they also consider the mysterious notion of beauty, attraction, and seduction. Pleasure, humor, and meditation are all constants that can carry on throughout Rachael's daily and artistic practice. Rachael earned her MFA in Printmaking at UW-Madison, following her BFA from Ohio University.

William Hays

After 40 years working as a painter, William Hays embarked on linocut printmaking in 2007. His prints are frequently featured in national competitions and has received multiple awards for his reduction linocuts. He is represented in galleries across the United States.

Derek Hibbs

Derek Hibbs grew up in the Toledo area and is currently pursuing his MFA in Printmaking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received my BFA in Printmaking from Indiana University-Purdue University-Fort Wayne. He currently works in lithography, intaglio, and relief methods of printmaking. His work addresses social and political issues in contemporary American society and is highly enriched with growing up in the midwest and experiences with industry, transportation, and "blue collar" life. Lately Hibbs has become more interested in human consumption on all levels.

Fuko Ito

Fuko Ito was born and raised in Kobe, Japan where she developed her interests in image-making and storytelling through collecting printed matter including comics, graphic novels, picture books, and magazines. She moved to the US to study printmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and received her BFA in 2014. She has recently graduated and received her MFA in Visual Art with an emphasis in Printmaking and Drawing from the University of Kansas.

Her work attempts to playfully explore and illuminate feelings of vulnerability and sensations of discomfort informed by her cross-cultural upbringing through her plushy, sentimental beings called fumblys. Fuko is driven to make work by imagining a world that is softer and more forgiving, as she reflects on the social implications and struggles of living among a community of emotional beings. The plushy world of fumblys is not a vision of a hopeless romantic but is a world of soft, affectionate sensations that exists in... Read More

Ina Kaur

Ina Kaur is an active interdisciplinary practitioner and educator. Localism, globalism and hybridity have formed a new perspective for Kaur in conceptualizing and visualizing her work and identity. Kaur’s research investigates how identities are defined and influenced by history, society and the culture of our immediate surrounding. In this global cultural environment where identities and boundaries converge, one seeks to identify oneself. Kaur explores a continuum of cross-cultural negotiation. Her studio research has been showcased in numerous national and international exhibitions and has also been a recipient of numerous Grants, Residencies & Excellence Awards. She has been invited for a number of visiting artist lectures and workshops.

Kaur graduated with her Bachelors Degrees with Roll of Honor from Chandigarh College of Art, Punjab and studied printmaking at M. S. University of Baroda. She was awarded scholarship to pursue her terminal degree and completed her... Read More

Karen Kunc

Karen Kunc is Willa Cather Professor of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her awards include Fulbright Scholar Awards to Finland and Bangladesh, two National Endowment for the Arts awards, the 2007 SGCI Printmaker Emeritus Award, a Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship Master Award, and an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. She has exhibited her color woodcut prints and artist books extensively nationally and internationally, most recent include: Chamalières, France; Tokyo, Japan; Maui, Hawaii; New York, NY; Venice, Italy. Her work is in public collections including: the Museum of Modern Art; the Library of Congress; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the Sheldon Museum of Art; American Art Museum Smithsonian; Haas Arts Library Yale University; Stanford University; Jyväskylä Art Museum, Finland. She has taught workshops in Egypt, Italy, Finland, Poland, Japan, France, Mexico, Iceland, Spain; and she has lectured as a visiting artist to over 200... Read More

Eli Liebman

I am printmaker, ceramicist, builder, and jail art instructor. My training includes an on-going apprenticeship with Mark Shapiro at Stonepool Pottery, summer study at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and residential construction. I initiated and facilitate a weekly 2D arts course at the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and teach an annual ceramics course at the jail. I have shown prints locally in Western Massachusetts. I graduated from Macalester College in May 2015 with a degree in Applied Mathematics and Statistics and minors in Physics and Biology.

Through my work I make an argument for a critical, non-reformist consideration of the socio-economic tragedy of modernity, capitalism, and (neo)liberalism. The work asserts a common solution, re-conceptualizing security, risk, fear, liability, and death as departure points for collective action and reconciliation. Inherent in this solution is the reaffirmation, thematically and stylistically, of artists (specifically... Read More

Carlos Llobet

Carlos Llobet is a Costa Rican printmaker and painter. As a teen he discovered a love for street art, the impact large format prints have on the public, and how something displayed outside a museum or a gallery space can have new relevance. For the past two years in Costa Rica, Llobet has made many art interventions in public areas using murals and wheat paste.

Llobet's prints are a snapshot of the people in San José who earn a living by doing informal jobs like lottery salesmen, shoe shiners, marimba players, and car watchmen. Taking life on the street as his subject, Llobet seeks to bring to the forefront the plight of the less fortunate who are struggling economically in world where the gap between the upper class and lower class is widening. Llobet explores the intrinsic quality of multiplicity in print media to create large-scale works of art using collage, painting, and weaving.

James McKiernan

James McKiernan is a retired graphic designer, illustrator, and drawing teacher. He has made serigraphs since the 1960s and continues today working with the Polka Press Cooperative in Madison. His emphasis is on story-telling through figurative images. McKiernan is a UW-Madison alumnus and studied printmaking with Roy Liddicoat and Dean Meeker.

Jessica Meuninck-Ganger

Jessica Meuninck-Ganger’s works on paper have been exhibited in museums and both experimental and commercial galleries regionally, nationally and internationally. Her prints, hybrid print/videos, and artist’s books are included in several private and public collections, including the Weisman Museum of Art, Northwestern Mutual, the Target Corporation; in contemporary publications such as Andrea Ferber’s Sustenance: Contemporary Printmaking Now, Richard Noyce’s Printmaking Beyond the Edge, and Nathaniel Stern’s Interactive Art and Embodiment: The Implicit Body as Performance. Meuninck-Ganger received a BS degree in Art Education from Ball State University and a MFA in Studio Arts from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She is currently the Print and Narrative Forms Area Head, Associate Professor, and Chair of the Department of Art and Design at UW-Milwaukee.

Gail Panske

Gail D. Panske received her MFA from Indiana University and her BFA from UW-Oshkosh. She is the recipient of an Arts Midwest/National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artist Fellowship. Her work is part of numerous private and public collections. Recent solo exhibitions include Rain Voices in Harrisonburg, Virginia; Between Now and No Time at the Aylward Gallery, UW-Fox Valley; and place to hold, at ArtSpace Collective in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Group exhibitions include Air, Water and Earth in Fullerton, California, The Print Center’s 88th Annual International Competition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and the 7th International Lithographic Symposium Exhibition in Tidaholm, Sweden. She has been artist-in-resident at the Jentel Foundation in Banner, Wyoming; Frans Marereel Centrum in Kasterlee, Belgium; Isle Royale National Park; Brush Creek Foundation For The Arts in Saratoga, Wyoming; Ålgården Konstnarernas Verkstader och Galleri in Borås, Sweden... Read More

Meghan Pohlod

Meghan Pohlod is a visual artist specializing in print media and print-installation. She completed her BFA in Printmaking from Metropolitan State University of Denver in the spring of 2015. Soon after, she relocated to Edmonton, Alberta where she received her MFA in Printmaking at the University of Alberta in 2017. Pohlod currently lives in San Francisco and teaches part-time at California College of the Arts in Oakland, California. Her interests and visual research include examining the body as interior and exterior space and questioning what happens with memory attached to trauma of abandonment when triggered by image, place and time.

Sarah Serio

Sarah Serio is a nationally exhibiting printmaker residing the Southwest Missouri. She received degrees in fine art and graphic communication from Missouri Southern State University. She is active in her area arts community serving as President of the Neosho Arts Council and previously serving as President of Joplin Regional Artists Coalition. She is also a member of the MidAmerica Print Council, Spiva Center for the Arts, artCentral Carthage, and Neosho Arts Council Circle of Patrons.

Her work has been exhibited in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, as well as regionally in Southwest Missouri. Recently her work was part of the 2017 Boston Printmakers 70th Print Biennial, Stand Out Prints hosted by Highpoint Center for Printmaking, MidAmerica Print Council’s Juried Members Exhibition, and Art by America: A National Review of Two-Dimensional Contemporary Art.

Serio is the current Director of the Thomas Hart Benton Art Competition and Exhibition held... Read More

Ian Welch

Ian J. Welch is an artist, printmaker and educator living and working out of his hometown of Toledo, OH. Welch received his MFA with a focus in printmaking from Northern Illinois University in 2016, his BFA with dual focuses in drawing and printmaking from Bowling Green State University in 2012, and his Associate of Arts degree from Owens Community College in 2008.

Welch is currently an instructor at Adrian College in Adrian, MI, and Owens Community College in Perrysburg, OH. Additionally, Welch is the owner of Pegboard Press, a small printmaking studio in Toledo dedicated to workshops, public outreach, and publishing artist editions with local artists.

Anders Zanichkowsky

Anders Zanichowsky is a printmaker and performance artist completing his MFA at UW-Madison (2019) with a BA in fine art from Hampshire College (2008). He uses printmaking as a time-based medium, rooted in the act of transfer and the gap between what is original and what is imagined or sensible. Zanichowsky combines traditional print methods with durational performance and slow-paced video to draw out experiences of longing, absence, and cyclical time in his work about disappearing landscapes, mourning, and queer desire.

From the Madison Arts Commission Zanichowsky has received both a BLINK! grant for public art (2015) and an Individual Artist Grant (2016). He has produced site-specific works as an artist in residence sailing with The Arctic Circle program in Svalbard (2016); at Røst AiR on the Arctic island of Skomvær in Norway (2017); and at Ox-Bow School of Art in Michigan (2018). His work has shown in local and international exhibitions including the 2009 Wisconsin Artist... Read More

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Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.

Our galleries are open Tuesday through Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday noon to 5pm, and other programs take place throughout the week. Please check the events calendar and education section for details.

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