Dos Tres Press: Color-Coded Alexis Nutini June 21–October 5, 2019
THE PRINTED IMAGE GALLERY Brandywine Workshop and Archives
Above and Below:
Printing in Relief
Acknowledgments Published on the occasion of the exhibition Dos Tres Press: Color-Coded by Alexis Nutini, selected from Alexis Nutini and curated by Gustavo Garcia. The exhibition, this publication and public programming is made possible through the support of the National Endowment of the Arts, a federal agency; the Philadelphia Cultural Fund; Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency; The Friends of Brandywine; Colibri Workshop, LLC; and Minuteman Press-Philadelphia.
Copyright © 2019 Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Philadelphia, PA All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced for mass distribution without the written permission of the publisher. A downloadable free copy for research or instructional purposes may be obtained at www.brandywine-art.org Published by Brandywine Workshop and Archives 730 South Broad Street Philadelphia, PA 19146 www.brandywineworkshopandarchives.org In association with Alexis Nutini, Dos Tres Press All illustrated works of art copyright © Alexis Nutini Artwork photography courtesy of the Artist, Jamie Alvarez, and Colibri Workshop, LLC Layout by Deja-Nicole Stokes Printed by Minuteman Press-Philadelphia
Table of Contents Introduction by Gustavo Garcia.....................................................................................6 The After Glow of Alexis Nutini’s Relief Printmaking by Sophie Sanders, PhD........9 Exhibit Checklist...............................................................................................................22 Artist Biography...............................................................................................................23 Free Public Programming.................................................................................Back Cover
Introduction
The Printed Image Gallery is honored to present the work of Alexis Nutini. This exhibition is a continuation of Brandywine’s year-long celebration of relief printmaking showcasing artists who have contributed to the field through education, production, and experimentation with technology. I first encountered Alexis’ work several years ago and recently began collaborating with him as we began to plan this exhibition. Rarely do you find an artist whose efforts are visible in all aspects of their practice; but when you do find one, they stand out like the work being presented in Dos Tres Press: Color-Coded. Alexis, a well-known artist in Philadelphia’s printmaking community, is one of the most enthusiastic relief artists I have ever met; whether you see him at an exhibition opening or alone at his studio, he talks passionately about printmaking and the many ways you can collaborate with the medium. The work he produces substantiates this passion, because of the time, sweat, and on occasion blood, that goes into the arduous processes he employs. This is all evident in the final artwork compositions he produces out of his South Philadelphia studio. The first time I visited Alexis at Dos Tres Press, it was obvious that this space was an experimental print laboratory. The walls were covered with prints recently pulled from the press, and in the air there was a faint residual aroma from the inks, distinguishing print studios from other art studios. Upon closer examination, the proofs covering the walls — all available spaces — revealed themselves to be notes and sketches made in the search for the perfect color combination, each of them was carefully calculated and precisely printed. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work Alexis produces and displays in his naturally curated workspace that he shares with his Pre-K son, Desi.
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Without a doubt, the work is beautiful and imaginative and Alexis creates it using only a few elements — ink and paper — fused into compositions using stencil, collage, and traditional relief printing. In each artwork, he combines color and surface texture, that are not commonly seen in printmaking, and usually seen only in oil painting because of the way the paint is layered. Just as a painting’s surface is built layer by layer, so are each of the monoprints in Alexis’ studio until the paper is heavy and textured with ink, acquiring a three-dimensional quality that ever so slightly comes out of the two-dimensional surface. These prints really need to be experienced in-person. Over the years, I have seen Alexis’ style develop methodically leaving, at each step, an incredible body of work. This is chronicled in a comprehensive essay written for the exhibition by Sophie Sanders, PhD, art historian and current faculty at Tyler School of Art. In the essay, Dr. Sanders takes us through the journey that has led Alexis to this mini retrospective exhibition, from the traditional textiles and geographical Mexican influences to the leap from analog to digital technologies by using a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) router. We are very grateful for Dr. Sanders’ narrative and the significant contribution she has made to this exhibition. The exhibition attempts to highlight some of the best examples representing a fruitful career. We hope that you share our appreciation for craftsmanship and excitement over ink on paper. During the course of the exhibition, Brandywine will host a number of public events celebrating relief printmaking to continue our understanding of the medium in all aspects. We hope viewing the artwork, learning about the integration of traditional processes and emerging technologies through Dos Tres Press: Color-Coded will be one of the gallery highlights for you this year. Gustavo Garcia Associate Director of Printing and Technology Brandywine Workshop and Archives
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Fig. 1, Cosmic Drift, Reductive relief print by Alexis Nutini, 88" x 90" x 1," 2012
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The After-Glow of Alexis Nutini’s Relief Printmaking Throughout its 47-year history as an inclusive hub for printmaking, Brandywine Workshop and Archives (BWA) has provided significant opportunities for artists-in-residence to create new works in printmaking media, especially lithography. BWA has been committed to its central mission of increasing visibility and celebrating work by international artists of color and many diasporic experiences. Since its founding, Brandywine has served as a resource for young people to learn about printmaking, art history, and working together towards common goals. Brandywine is embracing the post-digital age to exhibit its comprehensive print collection and to expand systems of collaboration and education by digitizing much of its archive. Another manifestation of BWA’s acknowledgement of how printmakers are implementing new technologies for aesthetic and technical innovation is this exhibition Dos Tres Press: Color-Coded by Alexis Nutini. The work of prolific artist Alexis Nutini embodies the spirit of collaboration, creative experimentation, and dedicated technical investigation that is central to Brandywine. Dos Tres Press: Color-Coded features Nutini’s rigorous experimentation with relief printmaking techniques through hand-carved, reduction woodblock printing and the digital technology of platemaking with Computer Numerical Control (CNC) routing, as well as monoprint layers and artist books. Alexis Nutini has explored many themes including diasporic perspectives on natural and urban environments, the fertility and fragility of islands and seascapes, the Mexican altars of the Día de los Muertos celebration, and creative partnerships with community activists and artists. His prints honor the pregnant possibilities of the graphic medium as a vehicle for the interplay of many visual languages and cultural references, and the marriage of improvisation with skillfully planned results. Nutini works out of his own printmaking studio in South Philadelphia where he maintains a print publishing business, Dos Tres Press. He is also an instructor of printmaking at Tyler School of Art, where he earned his M.F.A. in 2005. He is focused on creative alliances and expanding the possibilities of relief printmaking through traditional and new technologies. Visiting his South Philadelphia studio, one walks into a meticulous space that buzzes with color, line, and motifs that represent the diversity of peoples and cultures that enrich his images. Alexis Nutini’s prints pulse with an active system of signs and textures that communicate the multilayered aspects of memory, communities, and experiences of living in a diaspora, in which borders are never completely fixed. From his earliest years, Nutini understood the world as a place with open gates and porous borders, which has impacted his practice and pedagogy. He was born in Mexico to scholarly parents, who established their home as a place of rigorous learning, cultural inquiry, and community engagement. Both of his parents were academics in the field of cultural anthropology, and he learned from them about geography,
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the history of indigenous peoples, and the colonial conquest of Latin America. As a young boy, he accompanied his parents on their fieldwork in rural villages and major cities all over central Mexico. Nutini reflects, “[My father] would quiz me on world capitals, geography and give me history lessons. When my father would be interviewing and conducting research in cities, villages and small towns it would be my mother explaining the cultural significance of it all.” When Nutini was 10 years old, his family relocated to Pittsburgh, PA. He quickly adapted to living in North America, but maintained a connection to Mexico, where he spent summers with grandparents in Veracruz, and where he later was exposed to the significant legacy of Mexican graphic art and indigenous weaving. In Nutini’s prints, the accuracy of the geographic location or specificity of a historical reference is less essential than the overlapping of elements, the excitement caused by complementary colors, and the friction of enmeshed patterns. Landscape has been an overarching theme for Nutini, and these compositions are characterized by bold and often playful layering of patterned surfaces with bright, electric color and decisive graphic lines. In his panoramic sextet of prints that make up Cosmic Drift (2012; fig. 1), he presents a continuous turquoise horizon that branches into smaller vignettes of pattern and form, delineated in primary hues of yellow and electric orange. Water and sky become one, and only by looking closely can the viewer distinguish the original contours of inverted clouds reflected in the ocean, or the shapes of tamarind pods scattered on the ground. The seemingly infinite lines of seascape and its powerful currents are the only grounding for the eye in this landless scene. Cosmic Drift alludes to the sense of floating, and the blending of sea, sky, and the heavens. At once, great distance and extreme proximity collapse into a constructed view of multiple places.1 This expansive perspective provides a sense of immersion into pure color and line. Nutini has described the landscape theme as an “anchor point” that epitomizes how we share this world and its resources together. His imagery speaks to a range of memories and emotions associated with the contours of place, which can trigger feelings of joy, loss, hunger, or nostalgia at its very sight. In Snowy Glitch, (2015; fig. 2) and Media Noche Glitch (2015; fig. 3), he transforms a mundane bayside shoreline of buildings and trees in New Jersey into a pixelated series of lush shapes and masses that conveys the vitality of this location in his mind. This hand-carved series depicts the same landscape in different weather conditions, as expressed through 32 color variations that range from milky pastels to saturated greens, pinks, and blues. These intricate seven-color reduction prints also reference the 8-bit video games that Nutini played in the late 1980’s, and therefore conflate the magic of a specific locus with the childlike wonder of dancing pixels seen on a video screen.
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Fig. 2, Snowy Glitch, Alexis Nutini, reductive woodcut, 22" x 28," 2015
Fig. 3, Media Noche Glitch, Alexis Nutini, reductive woodcut, 22" x 28," 2015
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Fig. 4, Study for Homage to the Square: Light Rising, oil painting, ©Josef Albers, 1950, altered 1959 (photograph, Sharon Mollerus, 2014)
Fig. 5, detail of Mercado de Tlaxacala, public mural by Desiderio Hernández Xochitiotzin. City Hall, Tlaxacala Mexico.
The Glitch series is a formal study that considers how color relates to identity. Nutini’s sensitivity to the spatial possibilities of color perception has been influenced by the German-born American artist Josef Albers (1950; fig. 4) and Venezuelan painter Carlos Cruz-Diez, as evidenced by Nutini’s choice to pair a warm shade against a cool hue, and to accentuate a color with its complement. Even more than this, Nutini’s color aesthetics were informed by early exposure to the modern Mexican muralist Desiderio Hernández Xochitiotzin (fig. 5). Xochitiotzin was a dear friend and resource to Nutini’s father, and the two families were intimately intertwined. Nutini spent many days as a child playing in Xochitiotzin’s house and studio while his father conducted extensive research with the Mexican painter. This research in turn informed much of the imagery for Xochitiotzin’s didactic murals. Nutini therefore associates color with heritage, art history, and memory as well as optical perception. This heightened interest in color and identity was further elaborated when Nutini visited Chiapas, Mexico, and learned that the indigenous people living in this mountainous region use the language of color and woven textile designs to identify one another’s communities that are separated by the land masses. This experience inspired him to think about how color can be both communal and subjective. Therefore, he designed each print in the Glitch series with a unique palette to reference individual preferences about color harmony. These formal choices create depth and vibration in the two-dimensional plane, and the specific colors indicate the season, weather conditions, and mood of the scene. The New Jersey shoreline palette is strikingly Northeastern compared to the acid golds of Pulpa Elemental (2012; fig. 6).
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Fig. 6, Pulpa Elemental, Reductive relief print by Alexis Nutini, 88" x 90," 2012
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Nutini’s vivid patterns and saturated hues resonate with an intense glow, like an afterimage that one sees after staring at a bright light. His interwoven designs speak to ideas of connectivity and the interdependence of individuals and communities. In many works, he uses the graphic medium itself as a metaphor for how we communicate in an overstimulating, social media-driven world with striking juxtapositions and pixelated information. He combines psychedelic designs reminiscent of Op art and Latin American Pop art with geometric forms, photographic images, and other imagery offered by his collaborators to express a frenetic layering of experience and visual stimulation. 16,352 (2015) is laboriously hand-carved reduction relief monoprint that he mounted on plywood. It is pixelated like the Glitch, but the composition is compartmentalized into large shapes, including a patterned orb and a pyramid suggestive of ancient civilizations, geometry, and planets. These forms become fragmented in the lower half of the image as the solid pyramid is reflected in a pool of lava or other liquid. In this work and many others, Nutini interrupts a larger compositional structure with organic lines, destabilizing a predictable sense of symmetry. Alexis composes ordered planes with frantic, striped squiggles in a large trio of prints entitled High and Low Oldies V (2018), named after the 1963 film High and Low by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Nutini took a tightly wound VHS tape and spontaneously draped it across the surface of three inked woodblocks to serve as a monoprint stencil. The result is a trio of buoyantly tangled lines that zap like electric currents across solid fields of saturated color. These lines imply the burst of an electrical message or the spastic short circuit of a signal that never arrives at its destination, and they allude to the dramatic and twisted plot of the film itself. These stenciled prints speak to the challenge of controlling the chaotic unfurling of a VHS tape and Nutini’s improvisational openness to results he cannot completely predict. Like many artists that balance intuition with sophisticated experience, he references the creative process of learning through trial and error. By repurposing the antiquated medium of an analog film, he also refers to the translation of historical content into digital systems. Nutini’s drive to expand his opportunities as a printmaker has enhanced an increasing enthusiasm for the encounters and unexpected creative results of collaborating with other artists and community members. This development came at the same time that he found a way to expand his output and experimentation by making woodblock plates with a Computer Numerical Control router. His specialization in the relief printing medium has enabled him to implement CNC routing to dramatic aesthetic effects. He has harnessed the possibilities of a sophisticated registration system and streamlined a way of layering color and form. The CNC bits offer efficient and new ways of cutting and dragging marks across the wood to provide surface texture, and he exploits this to accentuate the silhouette lines that make an image “pop” from the background color. Also, the sculptural surface of the plate, which resembles a heat map, is itself something to investigate and present.
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Nutini remarks, “What’s exciting is the exponential possibility for experimentation with digital tools. Really, this is about learning…It has been years that I’ve wanted to work with half tones and near perfect circles and all manner of images…Everyone has questions about whether this is still craft, but it is still all problem-solving. I’m an artist adapting this tool to make prints out of a machine that was originally invented for mass manufacturing.” Alexis Nutini implements CNC routing to broaden his range of imagery and complexity of layers, and also to delve into rich collaborations with individuals and communities. In November 2018, Nutini was invited by Fleisher Art Memorial, a community art school in Philadelphia, to produce works for their Día de los Muertos celebration, an extensive series of community-building workshops, activities, performances, and a culminating exhibition and procession. He designed an installation (fig. 7) for Fleisher Art Memorial’s sanctuary space inspired by the theme ofrenda de todos, or “everybody’s altar.” As Gabriella Grimaldi observes, Nutini intended “to pay respects not only to the deceased friends and relatives of community collaborators, but also to those who are invisible or forgotten, such as the countless laborers…and the millions of immigrants caught in their own diasporas around the world.”2 Nutini culled images from local artists and workshop participants, the Calaca Flaca committee that organized all of the festival programs, other contributors across the Mesoamerican diaspora and Mexico. Through digital sources such as Instagram, he was able to gather contributed images in a flexible and improvisational manner to amplify the significance and adaptability of the Día de los Muertos tradition. Nutini reflects on this experience, “My favorite part of the Día de Muertos project was seeing the pleasure folks got out being able to choose from many images and learning how to combine them in various colors…This past year has put me in place where I’ve interacted with all sorts of people. I’ve worked with immigrant communities, people in other countries, established artists, beginners, old folks, young folks and people I’ve never met in person.” This germinative project resulted in a collective altar in the Fleisher Art Memorial sanctuary. The altar was mysteriously lit by a black light that accentuated the fluorescent and iridescent printing inks, and expressed the enduring luminescence of each deceased individual’s spirit kept alive in the memories of family and community. With Leticia Nixon, a Philadelphia activist and member of La Calaca Flaca, he portrays Nixon’s late parents with glowing color and light. Nutini honors Nixon’s father, Papi (2018; fig. 8), with a candle shining below his image and celebrates her mother, Mami (2018; fig. 9), with a dynamic halftone pattern of radiating dots that blend from fuchsia to yellow. The love and dignity expressed through these layered portraits is the essence of the altar’s purpose as a commemorative, additive shrine.
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Fig. 7, La Ofrenda de Todos, Alexis Nutini, collaborative Day of the Dead altar at Fleisher Art Memorial, painted woodcuts, foliage, flowers and persishable goods, 2018 21 19
Nutini’s collaborative efforts are both an expansion of his creative practice and a response to our current administration’s damaging policies against immigrants, displaced people, and refugees seeking sanctuary. At the same time that the United States president increases ferocious efforts to expand a Southern border wall, policing and dividing families with traumatic and even fatal consequences, Nutini leans into a deeper engagement of other artists and community members. Nutini’s art also permeates the mentoring of his young son, Desi. Nutini designed a jazzy print including one of Desi’s computer-generated drawings to convey the freedom of a child’s line and squiggles across flat geometric color fields. He says, “My collaborative process is at the heart of what printmaking has always been (a democratic and community-based medium) and serves many personal goals such as connecting and strengthening bonds with other creatives, sharing the medium with those unfamiliar or that do not normally have access to it, and as a way to accelerate my understanding and exploration of the process.” Another recent partnership with fellow artist, Miguel Horn, produced For the Trees, (2019; fig. 10) and enabled Nutini to integrate detailed forms from nature derived from a 3D scanner and cut them with the CNC router. Horn is a figurative sculptor who makes massive, site-specific commissions, and he uses landscaping 3D scanners to source information from a location to design digital models before he goes into production. Nutini routed a woodblock from Horn’s three-dimensional scan of a tree canopy that includes the navigational icons. To dramatize the perspective, Nutini printed the image in striking complementary colors of crimson and mint green, with golden light permeating the web of branches. In his dynamic and prolific printmaking practice, Nutini expresses the joy of exploiting a medium to its fullest potential and growing his ideas through the cross-fertilization of working with others. The optical resonance of his color choices and graphic marks allow his images to become embedded in the brain. Nutini’s incorporation of new imagery contributed by other artists and communities also represents the larger ripple effect or after-glow of his printmaking as a means of personal and cultural dialogue. By casting a wider net, Nutini’s collaborations exemplify Brandywine Workshop and Archives’ goal of supporting the transformative power of collaborative printmaking. Sophie Sanders, PhD is an art historian and artist working in printmaking and painting in Philadelphia, PA.
Sophie Sanders, “Primordial Ink: Alexis Nutini’s Synthesized Worlds,” Napoleon Gallery, December 31, 2012, https://napoleonnapoleon.com/2012/12/31/primordial-ink-alexis-nutinis-synthesized-worlds/
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Gabriella Grimaldi, “The Process Behind This Year’s Ofrenda,” Fleisher Art Memorial, accessed May 1, 2019, https://fleisher.org/the-process-behind-this-years-ofrenda/
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Fig. 8, Papi, woodcut, Alexis Nutini, collaboration with Leticia Roa Nixon, 20” x 15,” 2018
Fig. 9, Mami, woodcut, Alexis Nutini, collaboration with Leticia Roa Nixon, 20” x 15,” 2018
Fig. 10, For the Trees, Alexis Nutini, reductive woodcut, collaboration with Miguel Horn, 22" x 27," 2018 19
Fig. 11, Drifting Sunset, Alexis Nutini, reductive relief print, 40" x 30," 2019
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Fig. 12, High and Low Drifting, Alexis Nutini, reductive relief print with VHS and cassette tape stencils, 40" x 30," 2019 21
Checklist Cosmic Drift, 2012 Reductive relief print 88" x 90" x 1" Pulpa Elemental, 2012 Reductive relief print 88" x 90," 1/3 variable edition 16,352, 2015 Reductive relief print mounted on birch panel 36" x 28" Media Noche Glitch, 2015 Reductive woodcut 22" x 28," 1/32 variable edition Snowy Glitch, 2015 Reductive woodcut 22" x 28," 4/32 variable edition High and Low Oldies V, 2018 Relief print with VHS and cassette tape stencils 40" x 30," 1/1 Drifting Sunset, 2019 Reductive relief print 40" x 30," 1/1 High and Low Drifting, 2019 Reductive relief print with VHS and cassette tape stencils 40" x 30," 1/1
Collaborative Prints I’m Fierce/Ella se Rinde, 2019 Woodcut, collaboration with Sophie Sanders 22" x 27," 1/8 variable edition For the Trees, 2018 Reductive woodcut, collaboration with Miguel Horn 22" x 27," 1/18 variable edition For the Trees, 2018 Reductive woodcut, collaboration with Miguel Horn 22" x 27," 2/18 variable edition Cognates, 2015 Reductive woodcut mounted on birch panel Collaborative print with Mike Gamble 25" x 35" Bucket Tool, 2019 Woodcut, collaboration with Desi Nutini 22" x 27," 1/1 Mami, 2018 Woodcut, collaboration with Leticia Roa Nixon 20" x 15," 1/1 Papi, 2018 Woodcut, collaboration with Leticia Roa Nixon 20" x 15," 1/1
Green Screen Space, 2019 Woodcut with VHS tape stencils 22" x 27," 1/8 variable edition Sunny Side, 2019 Woodcut 22" x 27," 1/8 variable edition Dos Tres Press Process Manual, 2015–Present Monotype and relief printmaking techniques 24" x 19" x 1"
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Right: 16,352 (visible squares), detail, Alexis Nutini, reductive relief print mounted on birch panel 36" x 28," 2015.
Artist Biography 1978 Born in Mexico City, Mexico 2000 G raduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Frank McCutcheon award and Senior Purchase award. 2002 Fulbright Fellowship (Barcelona, Spain). Independent research project in wood block printing, A Visual Ethnography of Barcelona. 2005 Graduated from Tyler School of Art (M.F.A., Printmaking). Future Faculty Fellowship. 2011 Founded Dos Tres Press (South Philadelphia). A project space specializing in limited edition woodcuts and collaborative print-based projects. 2018 L ead artist for the annual Fleisher Art Memorial Day of the Dead Altar. Philadelphia, PA. La Ofrenda de Todos. Solo Exhibitions (selected) 2005 Suitcase of Wood, MFA Thesis exhibition, Temple University, Rome, Italy 2007 Intercambio, Mexico Lindo Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA 2013 Alexis Nutini: Selected Prints 2009–2012, Crawford Gallery, Chestnut Hill, PA 2014 Chrysalis, NAPOLEON, Philadelphia, PA 2016 Still a Lot Left, Second State Press, Philadelphia, PA 2017 A Simple Task, NAPOLEON, Philadelphia, PA 2018 Singular Moments, Penn State Abington Art Gallery, PA Group Exhibitions (selected) 2005 Cinque Straniei due Permesi, Quadrato di Omega Gallery, Rome, Italy 2007 Puro Muerto, Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles, CA 2008 Feral Prints, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 2009 Across the Ages: Alumni Exhibition, Boyden Gallery, St. Mary’s City, MD 2013 As first as exactly, CIT Y WIDE, Traction Company, Philadelphia, PA 2014 Graphic Coordinates, White Box Gallery, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia 2015 O ther Selections, The Center for Art in Wood, Philadelphia, PA 2016 Lost in Transit, SOIL, Seattle, WA Far More Real, COOP, Nashville, TN 2018 Under the Blankets, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA Publications 2005 Puro Muerto, La Mano Press. 2019 New Directions in Roman Printmaking: Impronte Romane. Temple University Press.
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Free Public Programming Friday, June 21, 2019 Opening Reception, 5:30 PM with ArtistNConversation and performance by Los Guachinangos Wednesday, October 2, 2019 ArtistLecture, 6:00 PM “The Gilliam Project,” a collaboration with Dos Tres Press, Sam Gilliam and Brandywine Workshop and Archives