PrintAustin's 5x5 Catalog, 2022

P R I N TA U S T I N 2022 5x5 KENA KITCHENGS RYAN O'MALLEY JUNLI SONG ANNA TROJANOWSKA LINDA WHITNEY

December 11, 2021 - January 22, 2022

P R I N TA U S T I N

5x5 Presented in partnership with Ivester Contemporary Juried by Caitlin Clay

PRINTAUSTIN PrintAustin is an artist-led nonprofit working with local venues and artists to showcase traditional and contemporary approaches in printmaking. Austin artists Cathy Savage and Elvia Perrin founded PrintAustin in 2013 and in 2014 produced their organization's first month-long festival, held from January 15 through February 15. PrintAustin has grown to include over sixty print-focused events serving thousands of audience members annually and attracting returning and new artists each year. Our mission is to share our enthusiasm for printmaking by helping galleries, universities, and artists curate, exhibit, and promote works on paper.

5X5 Produced in partnership with Ivester Contemporary, The 5x5 is PrintAustin’s second annual online juried exhibition, The 5x5, is juried by Caitlin Clay, Curator of Exhibitions at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas.

This virtual exhibition—with an in-person element at Ivester Contemporary—showcases five works by five contemporary artists from the United States, Mexico, and Poland, giving us a broad survey of printmaking happening across the globe. In-depth artist features and online programming highlighting this year’s selected artists can be found on printaustin.org.

IVESTER CONTEMPORARY Ivester Contemporary, an Austin-based contemporary fine art gallery, is committed to connecting people with leading local and regional artists and ideas. Rotating exhibitions are focused on creating a context for contemplation, deepening appreciation for the visual arts, and facilitating a dialog between the artists and their viewers. Ivester Contemporary is located within the Canopy creative complex in East Austin, a central hub for artists, gallerists, and other creative types.

printaustin.org @printaustin ivestercontemporary.org @ivester_contemporary

Caitlin Clay

ABOUT THE JUROR Caitlin Clay is currently the Curator of Exhibitions at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET). Promoted to the curator position in October 2020, she organizes all exhibitions at the museum including four to eight shows in the main galleries each year. She also oversees projects in the curatorial and collections departments including a $50,000 Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant to photograph and digitize the John Gaston Fairey Collection of Mexican Folk Art. Before becoming curator, Caitlin worked as AMSET’s registrar and collections manager. As registrar, she oversaw the safety, movement, and storage of AMSET’s permanent collection, and oversaw all loans and special exhibitions.

A Beaumont native, Caitlin received her Bachelor of Arts in Art History with a business concentration in 2016 from the University of Dallas. Her bachelor’s thesis focused on Roy Lichtenstein’s use of appropriation throughout his career, with an emphasis on his interest in Cubism. In 2018, she graduated from Texas Christian University with her Master of Arts in Art History with a specialization in Modern and Contemporary Art. Her master’s thesis explored glassblowing as an art practice and examined our contemporary definition of sculpture through a comprehensive study of Dale Chihuly’s artworks.

Caitlin has presented papers at Ohio University, the University of Texas at Tyler, the University of Dallas, Southern Methodist University, and Texas Christian University. She has also interned at the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the National Heisey Glass Museum, and The Works: Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology.

Kena Kitchengs, Raven and La Pérouse, 2018, linocut, hand-carved stamps, 9.25" x 3.35" x 3.35"

KENA KITCHENGS Toluca, Mexico

“As soon as I discovered artists’ books I began making them in a very intuitive way, and ever since, my artistic practice has naturally gravitated towards the genre. My approach at its core stems from a rather fragmentary training in printmaking techniques which, coupled with a basic notion of bookbinding, provides the perfect components for making books. Nevertheless, artists’ books transcend all technical aspects—including printing, having at the same time the capacity to take on anything.

“The possibility of using the shape, tactile qualities, and materiality of the book for narration and expression is why I like to use artists’ books for storytelling. Artists’ books make us set aside form and function dichotomies because the work consists of the object as a whole. “In my work I tend to lean towards myths or, at least, stories that are not mine. Even when I decide to tell something intimate, I make use of existing words or stories. It is in these re-creations and iterations, which I generate through book form, that I end up making these narratives my own. So much of what has already been said resonates with me precisely, if I look thoroughly enough; on the other hand, mythical narrative forms are so fantastical that they are, in my opinion, hard to surpass.

“Techniques: I use a variety of printmaking techniques in my limited edition artists' books (lithography, dry lithography, linocut, hand-carved stamps). On one of the submitted works, hand-carved stamps make up almost the entirety of the work. I use all kinds of materials, including kozo paper, regular printmaking cotton rag paper, fabric or leather, but printmaking in its many forms is my main way of creating images and is at the heart of each of these works.” —Kena Kitchengs

kitchengs.wordpress.com @kitchengs

Kena Kitchengs, El origen del fuego, 2019, dry lithograph, hand-carved stamps, 16.5" x 12" x 0.5"

Kena Kitchengs, Catalogo vegetal 2019 (sellos finos), 2019, hand-carved stamps, 8" x 8" x 0.2"

Kena Kitchengs, Untitled (Bestiary Deer), 2018, Lithograph, hand-carved stamps, 9.5" x 20" x 0.2"

Kena Kitchengs, Raven and the House Full of Fish (A Tlingit Tale), 2021, Lithograph, hand-carved stamps, 11.6" x 8" x 0.2"

Ryan O'Malley, Viktor, 2020, Reduction Woodcut, 23" x 19"

RYAN O'MALLEY

Corpus Christi, Texas “My creative practice focuses on the expansive realm of printmaking. My ongoing body of work Shapeshifter is rooted in non-traditional portraiture and intensive exploration of process. By transmuting traditional and technology-driven techniques, I contrast their static and dynamic properties and navigate the spaces between precision and imperfection—between the ephemeral, and perpetual. This series of reduction woodcuts, which I refer to as Tutelarions, are facial amalgams of many personally significant people rendered into emblematic heads.

Each layer of carving and printing is a meditation, a transference of physical and emotional energy from one state to another.” —Ryan O'Malley

ryanomalleyart.com @ryanomalleyart

Ryan O'Malley, El J-Rodorado, 2018, Reduction Woodcut, 18" x 23"

Ryan O'Malley, Son' jah, 2020, Reduction Woodcut, 19" x 23"

Ryan O'Malley, Spahr, 2019, Reduction Woodcut, 23" x 19"

Ryan O'Malley, Boykins, 2015, Reduction Woodcut, 23" x 18"

Junli Song, No Daffodils Grow Here, 2021, Lithograph, 14" x 11"

JUNLI SONG

Fayetteville, Arkansas “My work is inspired by the ancient Chinese cosmography, Shanhaijing, which I reinterpret through a feminist, diasporic lens. Centering around a female reimagining of the mythological headless deity, Xingtian, as a symbol of resistance, the world created within these images exists as an imaginary realm where the liminal becomes a space of alternative existence. As a Chinese-American woman, I have undertaken the project of world building as a way to create a space where I belong, and to make sense of the complex, often contradictory, realities of existing between cultures. Drawing upon the fantasy and humor inherent in self-making within diasporic societies, my work reveals the fluid nature of identity as inherited stories and traditions continually evolve.

“I am interested in the ways we perceive the world around us both physically and conceptually. In an artist talk, Torkwase Dyson referred to perspective as ‘a Western construction of visualizing space.’ This ‘Western construction’ operates as a tool of domination by dismissing other modes of perception as being inaccurate or untrue. Yet by the same token, can alternative ways of visualizing space be transformed into pathways for liberation? In my work I employ flatness and negative space as strategies of spatial contestation. I see flatness as an Eastern artistic convention which counters the Western use of perspective. I am also drawn to the way negative space functions as an opening—a threshold to cross over and enter other layers of the image. These moments of transformation, when absence becomes embodied, reflect how in-betweenness can be expansive rather than limiting. —Junli Song artsofsong.com @artsofsong

Junli Song, The Great Splash, 2021, Lithograph, 19" x 15"

Junli Song, La Danse, 2021, Lithograph, 15" x 21"

Junli Song, Wheeee!, 2021, Lithograph, 14" x 11"

Junli Song, Head in the Clouds, 2021, Lithograph, 14" x 11"

Anna Trojanowska, THE ORDER OF ENTROPY_07, 2020, Lithograph, 20" x 29.1"

ANNA TROJANOWSKA

Kamieniec Wrocławski, Poland “For several years I have been working on compositions related to rhythm, light, and shadow. My works are usually geometric abstractions made in the technique of lithography on Carrara marble. The series of works THE ORDER OF ENTROPY and UTWÓR PR ACOWNICZY (hard to translate—meaning something similar to ‘employee work’) were created in the two years of the pandemic, and they show anxiety but at the same time an attempt to close myself in a safe, predictable, and sensual world of the prints created during this period.

“I always try to avoid being literal in my works. Instead of re-creating—I create. Of course, it is not possible to completely cut myself off from reality and the impact it has on all of us, but I try to make sure that these connections are not strong enough to allow the spaces I create to be attached to a specific place and time. The printmaking studio is a place where images and ideas that exist in my mind come into the world. This place is full of mysterious smells and vials with strange objects and liquids; it is like an alchemist’s workshop. Prints created in it are like photographs of another reality, which I sometimes don’t understand. They are like snapshots from a dream from which we remember only some senseless image, sound, or smell. And the more we try to remember it, the more it fades away. A mysterious afterimage remains.” —Anna Trojanowska litografia.pl

Anna Trojanowska, THE ORDER OF ENTROPY_16, 2020, Lithograph on marble, 20" x 29.1"

Anna Trojanowska, UTWÓR PRACOWNICZY_05, 2021, Lithograph on marble, 20" x 29.1"

Anna Trojanowska, UTWÓR PRACOWNICZY_03, 2021, Lithograph on marble, 20" x 29.1"

Anna Trojanowska, UTWÓR PRACOWNICZY_04, 2021, Lithograph on marble, 20" x 29.1"

Linda Whitney, Blue Moon Butterfly Dancer, 2020, Mezzotint, 30" x 22"

LINDA WHITNEY

Valley City, North Dakota “My mezzotints were born out of my childhood love of Native American culture, my introduction to printmaking at a very young age, and my having been a very shy dyslexic girl. My sixth-grade teacher understood and showed me how to turn my disability into an artistic path. In high school I attended my first powwow and with the feeling of the drum reverberating in my chest— regulating the rhythm of my heartbeat, I knew I had arrived home.

Literally, I had met and come home to my grandmother’s people. As a baby my grandmother was separated from her heritage and raised by a white family. From this awareness I learned that the celebration of the powwow is a declaration of the strength and tenacity of the indigenous cultures of this continent. The beautiful regalia is a testament to the history and creativity of the people. That drumbeat I felt in my chest is also the heartbeat of mother earth. The songs are the oral history of the people.

“Married to a traditional dancer, I spent many years attending powwows learning and appreciating the different dances, styles of regalia, and meanings behind the symbols and traditions. Each of the several types of dance have their own meaning, steps, and regalia. There are three types represented in this body of work. The fancy shawl dance is a demonstration of athleticism and the dancer's indomitable spirit. It represents the joy and freedom of becoming a butterfly. The jingle (dress) dance is one of healing, and the sounds of the jingles are reminiscent of the wind in the trees. The men’s northern traditional dance tells stories of hunting, fighting, and tracking through the movement of their bodies. Today dancers honor their ancestors, missing women, lost children, elders, and those who are to come. The beautiful regalia connects each dancer to their culture and the history of the people.

“Having two left feet, I never became a dancer, but as an artist I wanted to capture the feeling of each dance, the beauty of each outfit, and the movement of the various dancers. My mezzotint image is printed from handrocked copper on Hahnemuhle paper and any added color is pigment gathered from the earth. The process is long and gives me time for reflection and each part of this process is, I hope, honoring and respecting the long history of the indigenous culture. My images are not portraits of people, but the resulting mezzotint captures the movement of the dancers and the texture, beauty, and detail of the regalia they wear while reflecting the strength and tenacity of their history.” —Linda Whitney lwhitneystudio.com @lwhitneystudio

Linda Whitney, Jingle Sisters Dancing for the Lost Children, 2021, Mezzotint with hand applied earth pigments, 30" x 22"

Linda Whitney, Butterfly Sister Dancing for the Little Ones, 2021, Mezzotint with hand applied earth pigments, 30" x 22"

Linda Whitney, Mimikwas~Dancing for All the Little Ones, 2021, Mezzotint with hand applied earth pigments, 30" x 22"

Linda Whitney, Super Blood Moon Dancer, 2021, Mezzotint with hand applied earth pigments, 30" x 22"

info@printaustin.org printaustin.org

A special thanks to our sponsors for helping to make 5x5 possible: This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department and other private donors.