Class of 2019

Introducing our new printmaking graduates!

ANNA ORBOVICH

University of Minnesota
Master of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
“Staring out from a window seat, my view looks down on the fjord as the train tracks meander along the edge of a cliff. Pine trees zoom by at a blurred pace, drifting in and out of a heavy fog. At times, the haze becomes so dense only a map can tell me where I am. The terrain shifts as we cross into Sweden. There are less trees and more open spaces, rock outcrops and lakes. Trains carrying iron ore pass by heading towards Narvik.”

I’m fascinated by the lines, textures, formations and moments that have shaped this earth. I’m in awe at the magnitude of it all, determined to somehow transcribe and share my thoughts through prints, drawings, sculptures and text. By continually creating and sharing, I’m hoping to maybe preserve at least a little bit of the wildness left on this planet. My interest lies in the interconnectedness of trails and waterways. I wonder about how the influence of human footprints have an effect on the environment through resource extraction and the desire to explore wilderness.

My creative practice is an exploration of materials, processes, ideas and the outdoors with an effort to find a way to cope with making work knowing that it is impossible to leave absolutely no trace on the environments that I’m so amazed by.

Website: www.annaeorbovich.com
Instagram: @aeorbovich
E-mail: anna.e.orbovich@gmail.com

JULIA MILBRANDT

Cleveland Institute of Art
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
I live for moments that make me oooh and ah, make my eyes widen in wonder and giggle in excitement. These fantastical visual experiences interrupt our daily lives with a burst of razzle dazzle. Strange shadows created by sunlight as it passes through a space, colorful light inside of a car wash, the way light hits and bounces off reflective surfaces like plastic and glass; these are the moments I am drawn to, ones in which light and color momentarily abstract the world around us and alter our perception. My work documents everyday brilliant experiences, like a glistening wine glass, soap bubbles in the sink, or an oil slick puddle in the parking lot. These moments are ephemeral, changing with their surroundings and time; they are extraordinary in an ordinary way. I want to capture them at their peak, that brief magnificence, pause them in all of their glory.
Using chalk pastel or lithography I render objects that act as artifacts of the fantastic instances I am recording. The objects themselves are often quite cheap and artificial, but the experience they provide is true and wondrous. It is, they are, the glitter on the floor after the party.
Through drawing, I extract and portray these fanciful, magical, visuals from my everyday experience; enticing viewers to take time to pause and appreciate these mini moments of awe. Using bright, vibrant, candy-like colors, and the lure of reflective materials, my work attracts viewers with these characteristics. I depict objects full of intricate, swirling details created by their interaction with light. These small, ethereal moments of beauty are enlarged to a grand scale, creating elaborate compositions full of rich color and intricacies that imply movement and energy on the paper.
As my drawings teeter between abstraction and representation, they can incite curiosity in the viewer. The surface of the chalk or ink, and the subtle traces of my hand become visible upon close inspection. This re-imbues the image with a kind of magic. The magic of making and the magic of seeing. Through this mediation I am able to convey, in some small way, my wonder and pleasure of the original experience.
My drawings flow back and forth between something we may recognize, and something abstract, but in the end, like that wondrous moment, viewers must set aside any sort of logic and reason, and give into the power and brilliance of the image I present.

Website:
Instagram: @juliamilbrandt_art
E-mail: milbrandtjulia@gmail.com

ETHAN LAUESEN

University of Alaska Fairbanks
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
Figurative Distortions, A Repose From Doubt, a thesis capstone of my undergraduate career is a collective body of work that comprises a visual dialogue of day to day experiences of Alaska Native and LGBTQIA+ experiences. The topics of intersectionality, community, and identity acceptance are core themes of my thesis work. Figurative distortions is a direct reference to the emotions associated with identity and the experiences of doubt, otherwise a lack of acceptance. To achieve this effect of figurative distortions I incorporate disconcerting elements into the figures, obscuring facial features, creating repetition of specific anatomical features as well as the entire figure itself. The premise behind the figurative distortions and body horror is to create an effect of emotional transference that alludes to the experience of identity rejection. The concept of a repose from doubt is fulfilled through an emphasis on a strong sense of place and the activities, routines, and culture that is associated with the city and rural scapes that I reference, places that tend to resonate with my own conscience and memory.
Essentially Figurative Distortions, A Repose From Doubt is an autobiographical, visual narrative that compiles my day to day experiences through intersectional context from relationships, community interaction, to identity acceptance and development. To emphasize the intimacy of my thesis I work on a relatively smaller scale, creating small etchings, encaustics, and collages that require more attention to detail. As a result my thesis work is basically a coming out story for my own non-binary gender identity and the gradual process of becoming more comfortable with that identity. The goal and intent for my thesis is to highlight the complexity of Alaska’s cultural dialogue, especially in regards to Alaska Native and LGBTQIA+ experience and fostering an appreciation for community and diversity .

Website: https://ethanjlauesen.com/home.html
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sia_wyn/?hl=en
E-mail: ejlauesen@alaska.edu

STEPHANIE ALANIZ

West Virginia University
Master of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
Uncertainty, lack of confidence, self-doubt, fear. These are all descriptors associated with having insecurities. Chances are, we deal with insecurities multiple times a day. These insecurities fill our minds and bodies with constant worry over things that feel trivial or foolish. Rather than discuss these feelings we keep them inside, never to be known by another. While insecurities live in a multitude of facets and are unique to each individual, we share worries about ourselves. In my experience, talking about these insecurities is taboo. However, I believe them to be a big part of what makes us human. As I think about these ideas and reflect on my fears, my work mirrors this consideration of our collective experience of insecurities, and the unease, fear, and anxiety that comes with feeling hyper aware of oneself. Through my work I analyze and create a conversation about insecurities with the intent to normalize them and help us find a mutual comfort.
For my insecurity portrait series, I have collaborated with the public and put out a call requesting participation. Using social media, direct contact, and word of mouth I have been able to work with people to create a series of drawings that together speak louder than separate. Along with a photograph of their face, each participant provides a list of insecurities and positives they associate with their physical face. This information determines what information will be rendered. The insecurities are executed with tone in black colored pencil while the positives are expressed in color. All graphic solid areas such as hair, eyebrows, jewelry, etc. are an aesthetic choice to help all drawn information visually read better. The drawings in this body of work support one another and show the collective experience of insecurities. These drawings prove that insecurities are a part of being human, and help to show the intersections that we all encounter regardless of our diverse identities. Texts about body politics, intersectional feminism, and empathy are all a foundation for my work. A lot of my research is based on the writings of Roxane Gay, Judith Butler, and William Kentridge who speak on identity politics, feminism, gender identity as performance, and thoughts and ideologies on the philosophy of drawing respectively. The use of my own body as well as others has been heavily influenced by artists such as Marina Abramovic, Jenny Saville, and Lorna Simpson.
The language each person uses to provide me with the information needed to render the portraits is so unique and universal at the same time. It’s incredibly relatable and has been used to create enclosures that coincide with each individual drawing. While each enclosures appears exactly the same externally, all internal elements and compositions are unique to the individual box, using various printmaking techniques such as screenprint, blind embossing, and lithographs to give voice to that person’s specific words. The enclosures existing this way is a metaphor for the assumptions we place on another person’s body, no matter how mundane or extreme, and the nuances of what one is dwelling about in relation to their own body and self. The intent of printing these words is so they transition from legible to illegible words as a way to reference obsession and dwelling. This is then created into scrolls, wall paper, and fodder for the insides of enclosures. Together all this work helps to inform one another. The drawings appear as clinical and specific, while the enclosures and the printed media are more creative and complex. This gives the viewer literal written word to understand the portraits, the individual, the collective, and intersectional experience we share as beings with insecurities.

Website: stephaniealaniz.com
Instagram: bavarianbaby
E-mail: stephanie.alaniz.art@gmail.com

HANNA KESTY

Murray State University
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement

“You’re overreacting” is a phrase that I have been told too many times that it has now become an immediate response to emotional situations. Because of this, most emotions are dismissed. The drawings and prints that I make are developed from a highly personal narrative discussing specific events, interactions and/or thoughts that arouse tension. They are an opportunity to admit damaging internal, uncomfortable conversations and interactions, while depicting tension and mental confinement. During the production process of a drawing or print there is a conversation of acknowledgement happening between these objects and myself, creating an uncomfortable, yet honest conversation.
Innocent, metaphorical objects help illustrate these internal disruptions. A wooden chair, vintage tv and a hare, along with a variety of secondary objects, are depicted in minimalistic settings dominated by negative space forcing the viewer’s attention on these objects, reinforcing mental confinement while adding a somber and tense disposition. Through the use of selective color, I am able to shed light on those tense moments even more. The combination of objects create a small moment within a larger narrative. The chair represents stability, comfortable or not and the vintage tv represents static, mental noise and implied disconnection. The hare is at the bottom of the food chain, and they are hyper-aware along with being naturally vulnerable and their solitary nature. Silkscreen is my printing medium of choice due to its encouragement of transparency and layers, allowing my images to be soft and subtle.
Artistic influences derive from mixed-media artist Toba Khedoori, with solitary spaces she creates through minimal imagery and compositions. I also look to lithographer Kathryn Polk for her use of interactions between figures and objects, as well as her muted color pallet. Other influences are words. Words are powerful; from poems such as milk and honey by Rupi Kaur, to music, or simply everyday conversations and the lack thereof. Words shape our day to day lives.
Overreaction or not, your body is trying to tell you something. Something is causing distress and tension, and the last thing we want to hear is that we are overreacting. My work brings light to interactions and concepts that cause emotional strain and the desire to understand why.

Website:
Instagram: @h.kesty_art
E-mail: Hannakest@bellsouth.net

REBECCA GIORDANO

Pacific Northwest College of Art
Bachelor of Arts

Artist’s Statement
I am an artist both from and residing in the Pacific Northwest. I cross media within my art practice but most commonly, my work comes out of print, collage, artist book, and textile based techniques.
I explore the power of memory, the intense moments that nostalgia delivers, and how these experiences can constitute home. I aim to allow the vulnerability and closeness that one feels in relation to a person, place or object to seep into the crevices of my compositions.
Confluence, consists of prints and a list poem, made from my journal entries while living in Ghent, Belgium for five months. Derived from the Celtic word ganda, Ghent means confluence; it is the city where the Scheldt and Leie rivers meet. Growing up near the ocean in the Pacific Northwest, my work has often related to water. Travelling to a place that is defined by its waters meeting elicited a sense of poetry and discovery for me.
Be it a physical representation or images generated from memory, my work is a window into my identity as an artist, dreamer and member of a community. My aim is to communicate both beauty and sentiment, move beyond the constraints of how place and self are traditionally defined, and to project, through my work, how I process the world in which we coexist.

Website: rebeccagiordano.com
Instagram: @Rebecca.giordano
E-mail: rebeccaagiordano@gmail.com

MARGARET WHITE

East Carolina University
Master of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
Art, especially comics, editorial cartoons, and science fiction reflects our socio-political structures while imagining new ways to exist; this is my goal in making artwork regarding climate change.

​I am intrigued by the tension in scientific and political debates and the collision of contemporary issues and traditional values regarding environmentalism: specifically, protecting humans versus preserving nature and the mitigation and adaptation debate. Scientists diverge on whether mitigation or adaptation is the most appropriate response to climate change. Proponents of mitigation seek to reduce anthropogenic impacts on the Earth’s climate; adaptation, rather, attempts to respond to climate-related damages that do occur. Environmentalism and conservation go hand in hand, but climate change is a world issue that affects us on global and personal levels through economic and social challenges.

Organizing image hierarchy via layering, selective coloring, and the manipulation of visual perspective highlights the different aspects of climate change and the multiple literal perspectives needed to tackle it. In this way, the art acts as a framing device for the scientific and political issues. My work expresses a narrative quality and contains vivid colors inspired by a love of comic books, sci-fi and political cartoons.

There is no returning to the pre-human version of nature. Research shows that has not existed for tens of thousands of years.[1] But we can make progress in how we practice environmentalism, economics and politics, and art. Through art, I am attempting to push our approach to science and nature to be more expansive and socially oriented.

My work is inspired by the IPCC Special Report 2018:
https://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf

and the Green New Deal:
https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hres109/BILLS-116hres109ih.pdf

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[1] Boivin, Nicole L, et al. Ecological consequences of human niche construction: Examining long-term anthropogenic shaping of global species distributions. Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America. 2016. https://www.pnas.org/content/113/23/6388

Website: https://whitemc4.wixsite.com/margaretclairewhite
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/margaretclairewhite/
E-mail: claire.white.cw@gmail.com

ALEFA AFALAVA

La Sierra University
Bachelor of Arts

Artist’s Statement
I use printmaking as a translator and bridge between my original island heritage, and my newfound Western independence. It is important to me that I am constantly learning in order to utilize the appropriate techniques to convey ideas concisely.

Website: https://ajafalava.myportfolio.com/
Instagram: alefa_art
E-mail: Aafa091@lasierra.edu

DANQI CAI

Maryland Institute College of Art
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
My work contemplates the ethics and perils of biological reproduction through printmaking, a medium that metaphorically bridges life and death. With “womb” being the Latin origin of “matrix”—a key element of printmaking—print media is akin to reproduction. A generative matrix begets multiplicity, just as we begin by making copies of our cells.

I make prints to cope with difficult emotions that arise from reading news regarding childbearing and child-rearing. These true stories often lay bare contradictory values that we harbor. My lithographic scroll, for instance, comments on the current gender imbalance in China, and explores the irony of people not wanting daughters yet desperately needing wives for their sons.

My prints are not only social commentaries, but also self-portraits. In some of my lithographs, for example, I reference my own body to depict the fertile female who finds herself diminished by her ability to bring forth life. In other lithographs, my one-month-old portrait becomes the face of the fetus, who has the rare opportunity to decide whether she wants to be born or not.

My multimedia triptych, To Be or Not to Be?, not only alludes to printmaking’s connection to birth and life, but also examines its connection to death. This project includes two 26” x 20” lithographs and a sixteen-minute-long video displayed in between the two prints. It delves into an existential question: whether life is a gift or a curse.

Website: danqicai.com
Instagram: danqicai
E-mail: dcai@mica.edu

AJ ZANDT

Iowa State University
Master of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
My most recent prints expand the relationship between the human body and surface through the lens of skin and clothing. Each work is comprised of varied combinations of pressure-printed fabrics and impressions of human skin on paper that take the shape of sewing patterns. I tear my prints after the first layers are established and follow the tears with shuffling, reassembling, and reprinting before stitching the pieces together. The prints are a reflection on the role of surface as a boundary. They are barriers that capture, like a fine net or filter, the actions of an artist at work. The actions themselves permeate the paper, but the evidence of the experience is registered—or printed—onto the paper’s surface. They are left behind as affirmations of life.

Website: https://ajzandt.net
Instagram:
E-mail: ajzandt@gmail.com

ELLERY PAGE

University of Arizona
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
I use printmaking as a medium to tactically translate my interdisciplinary interests in neuroscience, art, and poetry. At the root of evolution and biology is the power to replicate with slight varieties of differences.  Exploring these slight variations in the process of printmaking allows a more authentic means in creating work that is about evolution, home and the psychological importance of touch. A mediator of touch is perception. The surrealistic morphing of anatomy strives to initiate a change in the viewers perspective, how they see and categorize their world, not only to thin the line between humans and our environment but to the lines between reality and our metacognition.

Website:
Instagram: @ellerysart
E-mail: ellerypage@gmail.com

LUCY GREEN

Lesley University College of Art and Design
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
The series came from a sculpture I created through found object. I always want to be drawing from life and the collection of subjects for reference is necessary for me. Using portions of various paper wasp nests I have placed the animals that created this home back into their respective places. Each bug is inside a gelatin pill capsule and inside the concave storage cells. The process became tedious and obsessive, and it felt like how these hive minded creatures work to build their homes. Placing them back where they came from is a way of containing and preserving a species that is never static.

Website: lucygreenprints.com
Instagram: greeenprints
E-mail: lucygreen.prints@gmail.com

TIA NICHOLS

University of Virginia
Bachelor of Arts

Artist’s Statement
What does it mean to be endangered? To be, but only to an extent? To live, but only as though there were no tomorrow? If swiftly googled, endangered species are “anyone or anything whose continued existence is threatened.” What if you were told the Sumatran Rhinoceros, Marine Iguana, Bald Eagles, or the millions of wild animals of the world weren’t the only species hunted for sport or commodity? Among the human race, there are endangered species we often overlook. Society has normalized the dwindling population of chickens, various bird species, pigs, and cows for mass consumer culture. Instead of getting upset over this, choosing a vegan lifestyle would suffice. However, the media desensitization to the dwindling population of black, brown, and yellow bodies for God knows what, will always leave pits of stomachs palpitant.

My imagery intends to create thought provoking content for viewers, as they are forced to combine the worlds of farm animals used for meat and dairy products, exotic bird species hunted for feathers and clothing, and that of minorities who are often profiled and mutilated for senseless results. With an attempt at Artivism, my desire is to raise awareness regarding minority and animal rights through a coexistent, visual narrative.

Website: moemoeproco.com
Instagram: moemoeproductions
E-mail: moemoeproco@gmail.com

NIKKI D’AGOSTINO

Tyler School of Art
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
My work analyzes subconscious human behaviors and their spatial impact. By documenting transient moments of repetitive toxicity in urban landscapes such as fleeting posters, cans, and plastic bags, I highlight the indulgent and wasteful aspects of our lives we fail to observe. From physically enlarged photo realistic litter to constructing interactive installations, I am able to address quiet uncharted moments always around us. My desire for material sustainability is strongly influenced by making recycled handmade paper derived from studio waste scraps. Through sardonic representations of consumerism, my prints and installations capture the recurrent debris we leave and instantaneously disregard.

Website: https://www.nikkidagostino.com/
Instagram: ninkilovestrash
E-mail: nicolemdago@gmail.com

MAHRI WHITE

University of Manitoba
Bachelor of Arts

Artist’s Statement
Mahri White is a Winnipeg based artist with a focus in printmaking and sculpture. These mediums cross very frequently, and images of her three-dimensional works are used to create lithographs, silkscreens, and monoprints.

Website:
Instagram: mahriwhite
E-mail: mahri.white@gmail.com

CARLOS LLOBET

University at Buffalo
Master of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
Carlos Llobet Artist’s Statement
I’m a Costa Rican printmaker, strongly influenced by street art as well as German Expressionism. Currently, I’m exploring the idea of going beyond the printed editions but still maintaining the intrinsic characteristic of multiplicity in print media to create compositions and unique works of art using collage, painting and weaving the prints; this came about from his need to express new ideas that couldn’t be done in traditional print media.
A significant theme is the portrayal of life in the streets of his home, San José. The prints are a snapshot of the people who earn a living by doing informal jobs, lottery salespeople, shoe shiners, street musicians and car watchmen among many others. By using this subject matter, I intend to bring to the forefront the plight of those who are struggling economically in an ever-increasing world where the gap between the upper class and the lower is widening.
For the last year and a half, I have been exploring this widening gap between the rich and the poor and how the history of Latin America has perpetuated this economic inequality; as well furthering the exploration on the limits he can take printmaking, not just in size but also in its application for installations and public art.
The intention to shine a light on the shrinking middle class of Costa Rica, a segment of the population who is burdened with supporting through taxation corrupt politicians and corporation, but at the same time bombarded nonstop through the media with mages of a lifestyle that is increasingly harder to achieve.
My recent work consists of large format relief prints of people, he has encountered back in his home country of Costa Rica. The human figures are carved in a realistic manner and printed by hand on fabric. The characters are printed individually, which creates the opportunity for an infinite number of different compositions in which they can be arranged and create different narratives depending on the combination of figures.
This new work will be a five to seven-year project where I will continuously add more figures to create a more complex relationship between the prints, space and the audience. I intend to display the figures in outside areas through public interventions.

Website:
Instagram: teboll
E-mail: carlos.llobet@gmail.com

NICOLE BARREIRO

Florida Atlantic
UniversityBachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
Captivated by underrepresented women in history, my art aims to bring their accomplishments and efforts to light through the use of visual narrative and printed woodcarvings.
The overlooked contributions of women is something that I am passionate about. I desire to bring awareness to what they have done by creating artwork that serves both to educate and enlighten. During their time in patriarchal societies, it was generally frowned upon for women to take part in certain aspects of society, so their contributions were often neglected, or others took credit for their work. I make art with this subject matter because as a woman I sympathize with the struggles they faced in their own time based on their gender.
Printmaking provides a variety of ways in which to work with the multiple. Which means I can make many prints from the same carved block of wood and they can each be considered originals in their own right instead of copies. Working with multiples also means that various experimental techniques can be applied, surfaces printed upon, and works amplified after the initial printing. Blocks can be printed onto almost any fabric, walls can be screen-printed upon; if the print is on paper then it can be dyed, bleached, water colored, and other papers can be collaged on top of it. These methods have fascinated me since my first experience with printmaking and have enabled me to make art in the way I have always wanted.

Website: theangryprintmaker.bigcartel.com
Instagram: theangryprintmaker
E-mail: theangryprintmaker@gmail.com

HAYLEY SIMON

California State University Stanislaus
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
The social significance of modern myth is now more apparent than ever. My artwork centers on creating a visual narrative primarily through printmaking by making sense of emotions and giving significance to feelings. It is an exploration of life as a search for purpose and myth by developing images through reflection and spontaneity. In a place where I feel a loss of identity and interconnectedness, I am extending perception of real lived life. I am singling out specific moments in time and relating them to other moments for an intensified emotion to define its new dimension and perception of the memory and its reason. I look toward a myth structure to make sense of life, to combat anxiety, and to fulfill the desire for community.

Overall my work is an intimate look at memory and perspective, thinking about them collectively in order to make sense of their purpose and piecing them together.

Website: arthsimon.wordpress.com
Instagram: arthsimon
E-mail: artisthsimon@gmail.com

ADRIANA BARRIOS

University of Wisconsin-Madison
Master of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
My artwork stands as a witness to human activity, loss, and beauty of the California coastline. Cities rush to find temporary alternatives to keep their sandy beaches alive but, in the end, the ocean is in control. Homes, businesses, and public infrastructure must deal with the impacts of an altered landscape. Erosion is accelerating, and the ocean sea level is rising.

Working alongside professor emeritus Robert Guza of The University of San Diego California Scripps School of Oceanography, qualitative data along with direct experience is incorporated through printmaking, papermaking, photography, and video as a way to capture a physical memory of the coastline and record my careful observation of coastal erosion.

Gathered sand from the coast is incorporated into paper pulp which is then printed with an etching constructed from direct drawings made out of the same sand which the paper holds. Engraved and etched lines made from collected sedimentary rocks from the eroded Torrey Pines cliffs mimic the energy and force of the Pacific Ocean. Recordings from a drone and cellphone monitor the changing landscape. A live feed camera pointed at the horizon keeps watch on the coastline making visible the subtle, mundane, and transformative.

My studio practice is an ongoing study on how the recordings and observations of art and science translate the places I inhabit and the way I navigate my time in them. Considering humanities global impact on the environment I am interested in how art might stand as a memorial for a time passed or as an archive documenting a place that may no longer exist. The coast is transforming it moves with the water, the earth and the people that pass through it.

Website: adrianabarrios.weebly.com
Instagram: adriana_barrios_art.com
E-mail: adrianabarrios619@gmail.com

SYDNEY BROWN

Kansas City Art Institute
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
Through printmaking and detailed drawings, I seek to examine and illustrate my own female identity within current society. Influenced by “rememory”, the recollection of traumatic experiences that emerge to our consciousness in non-linear flashes, I create portraits of female figures, or “characters”, that are utilized as substitutions of myself. These convey a profound sense of emotional anxiety, sadness, anger, and fear through personal storytelling. I explore themes investigating female sexulaity, personal symbolism and tropes that relate to the domesticity, stereotypes and fertility (or lack of). To me, inquiring about female sexuality is crucial as it highlights the unspoken, it is something women are expected not to speak about openly. By using prints, I am able to allow for collaboration between myself and the plate, configuring what it is to be a woman and to reveal my own personal experiences to an unexpecting audience.

Website: www.sydneybrownprints.weebly.com
Instagram: _sydneybrown_1
E-mail: sebrown@kcai.edu

SHARA POOLE

California State University Sacramento
Bachelor of Arts

Artist’s Statement
With origins in the preservation of thoughts, ideas and events, I am inspired by printmaking’s inherent connections to time and memory. In my work, I explore loss and remembrance while employing various combinations of traditional and contemporary printmaking techniques which work to simultaneously omit and augment details. My subjects, stoic white silhouettes, faceless and ghoulish, find themselves dissolving into a misty atmosphere of dust motes and stardust or merging into the emptiness of blank paper. Fleshy bubblegum and hazy fog become the colors of flawed and faded memories, while the distorted figures echo the uneasiness and irrelevancy that comes with feeling disconnected from one’s past.  

Website: www.sharamercadopoole.com
Instagram: s_rose_art
E-mail: sharapoole@csus.edu

PATRICIA HOOD

Florida Atlantic University
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
I have been fascinated by the charm and visionary power of fantasy since childhood. As a result, my primary intent as an artist is to develop visual narratives that are steeped in my personal style of imaginative realism. Inspired by the mindscapes of J.R. Tolkien and Terry Goodkind, I create artwork that belongs to an immersive fantasy world. Each piece adds context to those before it, and imbues my body of work with relatable characters and depth.

Currently, my illustrative works are centered in collage that deliberately attempts to highlight the common themes of the human condition; The struggle against hopelessness, the loss of religion and the perseverance of faith, as well as the enduring quest for the meaning of life. I explore these themes by infusing my work with allegorical and symbolic content, saturating the image in layers of meaning while simultaneously seeking to evoke an immediate emotional or subjective response.

Website: candlevraprints.com
Instagram: @candlevra
E-mail: phood2013@fau.edu

BRADLEY HOSELEY

Pacific Northwest College of Art
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
This work is rooted in ideas of lost, longing, homage, archive, and power. To look at
one’s own identity and understand the history you embody can help create a more positive future. The lens of hardcore punk and gayness have been applied to this work. Knowing that the gay rights liberation sparked around the time hardcore punk. Positions this work at a crossroads of two communities fighting against a common enemy, the white supremacist capitalist society. This work calls to question what is there and what is lost. Where we have come and where we have gone. To quote Warzone “don’t forget the struggle, don’t forget the streets, don’t forget your roots.”

Website: bradhoseleyxxx.com
Instagram: trippxn
E-mail: bhoseley@pnca.edu

BENJAMIN ILUZADA

University of the Arts
Master of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
As a first generation Filipino-American, I remain trapped in a state of flux, haunted by the echoes of the American (immigrant) dream. Even though my father left the Philippines to create a better life for his children, as his son, I am expected to behave as if I also grew up there, knowing all of the intricacies and traditions that accompany it. However, like many immigrants, my father disavowed his heritage in order to assimilate into American society, leaving me in a precarious place amongst and outside of the Filipinos living in America and Filipino-American communities. Excluded by other immigrant communities and pitied by those fortunate enough to grow up immersed in Filipino culture, I remain “othered” by those who see me as “ethnic.” Through my artistic practice, I seek to piece together what it means to be a Filipino-American rejected by what I see as both sides.
Drawing on this predicament, my work focuses on two elements: my relationship with my father and my desire to belong to a culture of which I am expected to be a part of, even though I do not have much if any experience with it. Through varied processes, I work to uncover history to weave a new visual vocabulary capable of exploring my father’s heritage from which I feel so removed. The fragments that stick with me the most tend to be the mythological traditions connected to our ancestral family, and mundane experiences of my father’s youth. By utilizing handmade abaca paper with photographic inclusions taken from my father’s own albums combined with various printing techniques, I create my own interpretations of the cultural traces that I have gleaned from my father about our heritage. In appropriating these stories, I juxtapose them with modern landscapes and traditional imagery, creating a bridge between myself and others who share my experiences as a Filipino-American.

Website: www.beniluzada.com
Instagram: @2.step.press
E-mail: 2steppress@gmail.com

LEVI WERNER

University of Alaska Anchorage
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
Being born in the 90’s Levi’s earliest experiences with art were through Looney Tunes, animated Disney movies, rock and roll album covers and books like the Berenstain bears and I SPY.  Nowadays Levi is inspired by everyday life in this tech centric 21st century. Levi’s goal in current and future works is to create concise social commentary.

Website: Leviwerner.com
Instagram: Levitikusart
E-mail: Levitikuswern@gmail.com

LOUISE FISHER

Arizona State University
Master of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
While day allows for productivity, night affords us contemplation, privacy, silence, intimacy, and most importantly—rest. There I find refuge in the infinite feeling of space and humility in the face of the stars. In post-industrial society, darkness is becoming a rare phenomenon as humans continue to extend their security and productivity through artificial lighting. Commonly overlooked, light pollution has drastically altered ecosystems, our biological rhythms, and a collective sense of wonder. Through my work, I investigate how light affects sleep cycles and our experience of time; creating atmospheric landscapes that are as dreamlike as they are familiar.

I am an interdisciplinary artist working in the expanded field of print; using methods of layering, impressing and repetition for it’s literal and visual enactment of time and the body. By integrating constructed and celestial time, geometric and organic forms, and digital and hand-drawn printmaking processes, I point to the complexities of our current experience with nature. Through an investigative visual language, I aim to rekindle an appreciation for natural light and ask viewers to consider how their rhythms are impacted by this new incessant LED world.

Website: www.louisefisherart.com
Instagram: @louisefisherart
E-mail: louisefisher@asu.edu

MELISSA DONLON

Kansas State University
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
Saudade is a Portuguese term that is used to describe a deep emotional state of longing for an absent thing or person that one loves. It acknowledges that the person or object of longing might never return. Moreover it is the appreciation for the sadness that one feels, as sadness is the evidence of the love that remains. As a wife of a deployed soldier, feelings of loneliness, loss, exhaustion and constant fear for my husbands life are continual and unshakable. My artwork deals with the subjects of love and loss, loneliness and hope, presence and absence. It represents how I navigate my husband’s deployments and the recent death of our family dog. My large-scale multi-media oil painting engulfs the viewer in order to express the overwhelming helplessness that I often feel. It is about my relationship with my husband, the love that we share and my struggle to appreciate the sadness that I feel while he is away.

Website: https://melissacoker27.wixsite.com/melissadonlonart
Instagram: @melissadonlonart
E-mail: melissacoker27@gmail.com

LU COLBY

Murray State University
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, on an average day, women spent more than twice as much time preparing food and drink and doing interior cleaning, and over three times as much time doing laundry as men did. However, with contemporary standards, higher education, careers, and independence are all desirable traits found in American women. Through my body of work, I attempt to reflect on these double standards and raise these questions about women’s roles and representation in American society today.
I dissect and experiment with these gender stereotypes by adding characteristics of traditional woman’s work such as needle work, feminine patterns, and symbols in attempt to question these given roles to women specifically in American society. Using site specific materials such as dust and sweepings from my home with household objects, I create an ambiguous narrative within my work for people to to find a correlation between their own experiences with femininity and my own.
Inspired by the works of artists such as Nandipha Mntambo and Regina Jose Galindo, my pieces have varied in mediums of art such as sculpture, printmaking, installations, and performance pieces but all have common characteristics such as multiplicity and repetition. The use of repetition and multiplicity throughout my work speaks to these individual moments and experiences as a whole while also reflecting on the methodical and repetitive ways women conduct tasks in their own home such as daily chores and personal hygiene.
I believe these symbols and objects parallel and represent many elements of being female. Addressing these traditional gender stereotypes are speaking to my personal experiences as a woman and the greatness and hardships that parallel that identity.

Website:
Instagram: @onceinalumoon
E-mail: ncolby@murraystate.edu

TIA NICHOLS

University of Virginia
Bachelor of Arts

Artist’s Statement
What does it mean to be endangered? To be, but only to an extent? To live, but only as though there were no tomorrow? If swiftly googled, endangered species are “anyone or anything whose continued existence is threatened.” What if you were told the Sumatran Rhinoceros, Marine Iguana, Bald Eagles, or the millions of wild animals of the world weren’t the only species hunted for sport or commodity? Among the human race there are endangered species we often overlook. Society has normalized the dwindling population of chickens, various bird species, pigs, and cows for mass consumer culture. Instead of getting upset over this, choosing a plant-based lifestyle would suffice. However, the media desensitization to the dwindling population of black, brown, and yellow bodies for God knows what, will always leave pits of stomachs palpitant.

My imagery often combines the worlds of traditional art forms, animal abstraction, and portraiture of African Americans.

Instagram: moemoeproductions
E-mail: tmn7rc@virginia.edu

CARLY ZIMMERMAN

University of Akron
Bachelor of Fine Arts

Artist’s Statement
The damage is done; the storm has passed.
What is left now is all that matters.
Picking myself up, I begin to work.

The memory of place.
Memories of shapes, colors, textures, smells, and presence.
Remnants repurposed.

I seek peace, distance from what was destroyed.
I seek solitude and acceptance.
I define a new landscape excavated from memory.

Paper pulp, ink, paint, pumice.
Organic material, yarn, gold and copper leaves.
Repetitive forms resembling natural elements—paths, clouds, mountains.

Finding balance within the instability of forms.
Destroying materials—shredding, ripping, and carving.
Scabs no longer hidden; the healing begins.

Here. Strength, endurance, malleability, and power of nature.
Form and process coexist with the balance of the universe.
What was is gone; this is now.

Website: www.carlyzim.weebly.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/carlyzim
E-mail: carlyezimmerman@gmail.com