Screenprinting with African Immigrant and Refugee Foundation (AIRF) at Pyramid Atlantic

Intern Kate Horvat supervising a small screenprinter
muscle through a print

This Tuesday a group of eight girls came to Pyramid Atlantic from the American Immigrant and Refugee Foundation to participate in a whirlwind print exchange. Interns Amy Cousins and Kate Horvat showed the girls how to draw on films to expose onto screens. Highlights for the kids included putting their hands on the exposure unit as the vacuum seal kicked in as well as seeing their images magically appear at the washout station. Ah, the joys of screenprinting.

After demoing how to register and pull prints, we handed the reins over to the girls, and they were pros.

Each student produced an edition of eight prints which they brought back to AIRF to trade. Imagery in the editions ranged anywhere from mementos of their home country to silly faces to geometric abstraction, all in bold colors--true to the screen printing medium.

We may have made screenprinters of them yet!

CTRL + POW! @ AAC

Arlington Art Center's (aac) new exhibition CTRL + P is a must-see tour de force of cutting-edge printmaking. "Curators Kristina Bilonick and Julie Chae present the work of artists who are approaching this discipline through non-traditional processes, forms, and means of dissemination and distribution. The work is rooted in the tradition of printmaking, but crosses into and employs multiple disciplines, including installation, performance, film and new media." --aac

We zoomed in on all things screenprint, particularly artists pushing exciting new directions. CTRL + P is packed with screenprint risk-takers: screenprint collages, wheat-paste pants, a screenprint video installation, a 2-story scroll and a print made with raw pigment powder pushed through the screen. Prominently displayed in the main hall are Brian Chippendale's colorful screenprint collages (top). These multilayered masterpieces appear to be cut-out shapes from larger prints that are then adhered to board and paper. Don't miss Anthony Dihle's intimidating and amusing trouser trio Here Come the Pants (center) on the lower level (see his process here). Dihle notes the wheat-pasted silhouettes will be scraped off the wall at show's end (there go the pants!). To the left of the pants, a first for this blogger: a video screenprint animation by Jordan Bernier. (bottom).

On the first floor in the rear, Serena Perrone screen printed a complex and tranquil pattern on
a swath of cotton sateen in Biwa. Her craftsmanship is flawless and inspiring.

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CTRL + P

New Directions in Printmaking

June 22 - September 16, 2012

Arlington Arts Center

3550 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA

www.arlingtonartscenter.org



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