ALBERTA PRINTMAKERS GALLERY

Planning your visit:

Gallery Hours:

Wednesday: 10am - 8pm

Thursday - Saturday: 10am-5pm

Visitor Update - June 29, 2022:

A/P has updated our visitor guidelines for all in-person visitors.

(1) Masking is not required.

Visitors are supported in wearing a mask if they prefer.
To accommodate anyone who visits without their own mask and would like to wear one, A/P has disposable masks available (in both child and adult sizes).

(2) Visitors must not be exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms or have tested positive for COVID-19.

UPCOMING EXHIBITION:

2ND PRESSING:
Presented by AUArts Print Students in collaboration with Alberta Printmakers

Dates: July 15 - August 5

Closing Reception: August 5 from 7-9pm

Members and invited guests are welcome to attend this event, which will include artwork sales, a silent auction and light refreshments.

About the Exhibition:

2ND PRESSING is an exhibition of prints that were designed to highlight the collaborative nature of printmaking.

→ 9 AUArts Print Students collaborated with A/P to design, curate, and print 18 limited editions using A/P's Vandercook Letterpress.

→ This project is A/P's 2nd annual AUArts Student-led initiative, which celebrates students while building their connections with A/P and the broader arts community.

Artists:
AJ Colum, Paul Dudar, Isis Horne, Levin Ifko, Rachel MacKinnon, Nicole Olson Grant-Suttie, Sam Rollo, Andy Rubio, Jessica Wu

*All 18 limited edition artworks are available for sale to fund future collaborations between A/P and AUArts Students, which serve to support students' career growth in the broader artistic community.

About the Artists:

AJ Colum has only been stung by a bee once and It was entirely their fault. For she stepped on it as it was just trying to chill in a sunbeam. An ex full time horse rider, who once wrote a play about the Greek gods eating cereal. Working in in a basement closet studio at least ten minutes away from the nearest gas station, now she moonlights (literally it 2am) as an artist who switches styles and medias faster than lightening. Fascinated by the natural world and its ability to conform into images with a high percentage of cartoon logic. So no logic at all. She enjoys taking the perceived meanings words and phrase as a suggestion rather than a rule. On top of exploring the personification and symbolize of none humans. AJ’s pieces sometimes explore emotional catharsis for experiences with the issues surrounding access, gender and capitalism. But sometimes it’s just a dinosaur with a juice box.

Paul Dudar is a fourth year Print Media student at the Alberta University of the Arts. His aim is to use modern print making techniques and illustration to explore modes of visual storytelling and narrative. Art and illustration were instilled in him at a young age by his family members and have grown to be important parts of his educational experience both in academia and in the reflection on his personal life. Paul was awarded honor roll standing in his first two years at AUArts and is looking forward to further collaboration with the Alberta Printmakers Society.

Isis Horne is a Print Major at Alberta University of the Arts with a minor in Fibre. Isis’s focus in her studies is the exploration of escape into fantasy in a turbulent childhood, to transform the dark into delicate and ethereal. In her practice, Isis combines illustration and print to produce visual narratives onto cloth to share stories of her experience of intergenerational trauma and the effects of parental addiction on youth. Alongside sharing her own experiences, Isis has reached out within her community to produce a Zine project called Children of Chaos, which shares the anonymous stories of others experiences of parental addiction. Isis has recently been interested in data collection and how she can visually describe and communicate the effects of her experiences in the day to day through print and painting. This coming year Isis will be continuing her work of blending fantasy with reality and producing a second zine sharing the voices of the children bred from chaos.

Levin Ifko is an interdisciplinary artist based in Mohkinstsis (Calgary AB). Interested in how play and change shape queer and trans identity, they explore ambiguity through work in video, sculpture, print, and music. Ifko was recently the artist-in-residence at The New Gallery in an open-studio style project called Writing With My Hands (2022). Their visual art is currently being shown in a group show called Urban Soul, with the Alberta Society of Artists TREX Southwest program (2021-2023). Ifko graduated in 2022 with a BFA in Media Arts from the Alberta University of the Arts.

Rachel MacKinnon a designer, illustrator, printmaker, and recent graduate from the Alberta University of the Arts. Her work ranges from comics to colourful silkscreens and book designs. She sees herself as a hybrid designer who brings illustrative elements into modern design and likes to add fun and whimsy into her practice! Rachel enjoys books, cats, and occasionally talking about herself in the third person.

Nicole Olson Grant-Suttie is an artist who revels in the intricate processes involved in printmaking. She finds magic in the meticulous, and pleasure in patterns. Coming from a background in theatrical lighting design, her tendency is to bring forth the light from the shadows. Nicole is grateful for this opportunity to learn not only the letterpress but also the process involved in coordinating such an exhibit.

Sam Rollo: I am a recent graduate of the Alberta University of the Arts (class of 2022) with a BFA in Print Media and am the current director of the Marion Nicoll Gallery. As former director of the student-run print media gallery Galerie Gaulin, and a current volunteer and board member for the not-for-profit Alberta Printmakers, I have been focused on developing collaborative, inclusive programming that encourages connection and community building through the organization of projects such as the Letterpress Printed Postcard Project, group exhibitions, and building/installing a Community Zine Exchange at AUArts. My artistic practice is based in anti-authoritarianism and community building. I primarily work with collage and silkscreen and use tactics found in agit-prop (agitational propaganda) to represent “business as usual” as dystopian while conveying a push for an alternative condition. In my studio practice I am a firm believer in knowledge and skill sharing, peer to peer support, and providing mentorship opportunities whenever possible.

Andy Rubio is a Queer, Trans*, and mixed-race artist practicing in Mohkinstsis, Treaty 7 Land Territory. Currently, they are completing their final year towards a BFA majoring in Print Making at AuArts. Through processes of printmaking, primarily silkscreen, they enjoy exploring themes and experiences of Queer visibility, liminal space, representation, commodification, and nostalgia, along with imagery related to automobiles, dead animals, and anthropomorphic taxis.

Jessica Wu: I am a Calgary based artist currently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking at Alberta University of the Arts. My work mainly focuses on my experiences with sexuality, gender, and cultural identity. I explore themes of time, memory, remembering, and forgetting in my work. I examine the ways in which memory is tied to personal identity, the sense of self, cultural identity, and family. Objects of material culture and nostalgic objects are often starting points for my imagery. Things that hold cultural significance, childhood toys, and family photos are some of the things I have been referencing. The designs I made for this project are inspired by traditional folk Chinese papercutting designs. My adaptation of these motifs pays homage to my cultural heritage through my lens as a printmaker and person in the Chinese diaspora.

Past Exhibition:

Zones / Indicators by Elizabeth Claire Rose

Exhibition Dates: April 1 - May 13, 2022
IN PERSON Opening Reception: April 1 from 7-9 PM (MST) - Artist in attendance

VIRTUAL ARTIST TALK: April 28 from 8 - 9 PM MDT REGISTER HERE

"My practice as an artist begins with the study and research of parallel places and ecosystems. I observe and identify how they mirror each other’s function and form, and how, through their similarities they are able to exhibit uniqueness. Studying these sites is especially important in the face of climate change, as highly sensitive places like islands and alpine areas become more vulnerable to fluctuating temperatures, rising lake and sea levels, which in turn impacts the survival of flora and fauna in these vulnerable landscapes.

Referencing my own experiences traveling through altitudinal zones to alpine areas, and across latitudinal lines, I create work which connects geographically disconnected landscapes focusing on their shared ecologies: how each site is connected through climatic shifts, soil qualities, and habitat range. I repetitively rework traditional copperplate matrices, often in combination and collage with photo-lithography, and photography to extract observations, uncovering cultural and natural histories."

Elizabeth Claire Rose was born in Central Illinois, grew up exploring natural areas of the midwestern United States, which cultivated her creativity and interests in ecology, biogeography, and the ecological value of varied landscapes. Rose received her MFA in Printmaking from Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University and a BA in Fine Art with a minor in Wilderness Studies from the University of Montana. Rose is an alumna of the Fulbright Program in Poland (2019-2020) where she was awarded a research grant in printmaking.

To learn more about her work, please visit www.elizabethclairerose.com

Past Exhibition:

WYSIWYG / Alex Linfield

January 14 - March 4, 2022

ONLINE Artist Talk:
February 24 from 7-8 PM (MST) via Zoom
REGISTER HERE

IN PERSON Closing Reception:
March 4 from 7-9 PM (MST)

What is so new about “new media”? The original definition of “media” meant “material” (wood, bronze, ink, and so on). How ironic is it that new media (or digital media) is viewed as holding an immaterial existence? The digital image is “made” of light and a language of binary code, not ink and paper. But why is this shift towards immaterialism an important distinction between our original definitions of media? As printmakers, we know why the adoption of new forms of media marks important cultural shifts, having intimately studied the implications of the printing press. With the birth of print media, radical changes in fundamental concepts such as originality, ephemerality, identity, and time were forced to suit the existing media models. We are now once again faced with an epistemological and ontological crisis of the image in contemporary times.

Materials such as dust are known for their strong connection to the passage of time and human indexicality. However, through the works in this exhibition, many fundamental concepts of being are defamiliarized through subtle digital manipulations of familiar materials and surfaces.

Alex Linfield is a multidisciplinary artist, newly based in Mohkinstsis/Calgary. Linfield holds an MFA from NSCAD University and a BFA from the University of Alberta.

Past Exhibition:

Kasia Koralewska /
Basic Social Unit Hierarchies

September 17th - November 5th, 2021

Artist Talk and Reception - NEW DATE! October 29 from 7-9pm
This is an IN_PERSON event
(As per municipal and provincial guidelines and requirements: proof of vaccination, masking, and distancing is required)

Artist Statement

The project Basic Social Unit Hierarchies focuses on matriarchal and patriarchal elements within a basic social unit – a family. I study the distinction between these two models, based on my partner’s and my genealogical histories. I investigate the generational (three generations) and ethnographic (Polish and Canadian) differences and transformations regarding gender-imposed roles within studied families. I hope that the process, along with the installation - which is a culmination of my research - will, to some extent, elucidate my position and identity as a woman in my own family.

The work consists of two pillars of printed cloth depicting the dynamics between matriarchal and patriarchal elements within my partner’s and my family. The catalyst for this project was my curiosity to find out how our different histories and experiences have impacted our understanding of our partnership in a domestic context. I want to be aware of any behavioral tendencies we both might have inherited into our home life. I hope for this piece to also inspire my audience to revisit the homes where they come from and to analyze how the domestic models that they have experienced influence their current relationships.

Inspired by the 18th century Toile de Jouy, my pieces are printed on canvas in monochromatic blues and reds. The motifs of traditional Toile de Jouy depicted idyllic scenes of every-day life. My drawings of family life might seem to be pleasant at first, but after a closer look, they also show loneliness, neglect, boredom, and anxiety.

Kasia Koralewska is a textile-based artist and art educator currently living in Calgary, Canada. She received her education at the Alberta College of Art & Design in Calgary, Canada and Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, Poland (Master of Fine Arts 2009). She presently teaches in the Fibre program at the Alberta University of the Arts. Her research focuses on various techniques and processes that transform the surface of the cloth. Her artistic practice involves creating large-scale silkscreen printed, dyed, and painted textiles, wearable objects, drawings, and installations. Her work has been exhibited in Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, and Canada.

July 9th - August 27th, 2021

Past Exhibition:

Printmaking has a history of both inter-artist and inter-geographical dialogue. Within its tradition, collaborative making where printmakers partner with other artists, disciplines, and communities is commonplace. Print artists rely on one another everyday because most of us must access equipment through publicly accessible print shops and artist-run centres. It is no surprise that print artists have a long tradition of sharing our work with each other through exchanges and collaboration because the centre of printmaking culture is community-focused based on this need to share resources. Print artists and organizations often facilitate contemporary exchanges between artists through both local portfolios and inter-geographical exchanges. Alberta Printmakers (A/P) proposes to highlight alternative forms of knowledge dissemination and creative exchange through the exhibition of “Trio” and a portion of 'Vague démographique : mouvance des cultures'' in our Main Space Gallery.

“Trio” is an exchange portfolio of print works organized by Martha Street Studio in Winnipeg that includes pieces by their members as well as students from the University of Manitoba and Brandon University. Exchange portfolios like “Trio” include a set number of artists who each produce and edition of prints equivalent to the number of artists involved. The prints are then exchanged between the artists, allowing each person to collect a full set of impressions.

Printmaking exchange portfolios are an integral aspect of the contemporary printmaking landscape that are centred on the artists and function as a form of artwork dissemination that allows for the exchange of contemporary discourse and community building between artists. Because prints are typically made on paper, they are often small in scale and light-weight, which makes them easily transportable in comparison to some other forms of work. Because of this, print exchanges often cross national and international borders, generating relationships amongst diverse populations.

Martha Street Studio and Alberta Printmakers are furthering the concept of exchange by additionally exchanging complete portfolios. At a similar time that Alberta Printmakers will be hosting “Trio,” Martha Street Studio will be presenting “Futurology,” a print portfolio exchange created in celebration of the 30th anniversary of A/P.

'Vague démographique : mouvance des cultures'' is a project that was created by artists from l'Atelier Presse Papier and First Nations artists from several regions of Québec. Each artist duo worked in collaboration with their counterpart to illustrate the movement of cultures. Alberta Printmakers will share an artist book that is composed of works from each collaborative duo. Though space does not permit for the exhibition of this entire project within our Main Space, A/P hopes to aid l'Atelier Presse Papier in finding potential partner venues to share the rest of the project.

Alberta Printmakers aims to draw attention to “exchange” as not only a valid way of sharing cultural products but as a method of reciprocity amongst artists and communities of makers. When we make work that is for, and with each other, hierarchies of creative economy begin to be dismantled. We aim to draw attention to the benefits of resource sharing as exemplified through community printmaking studios such as our own and seek to share ways of generating collectivity across lands and between communities.

Our Partners:

Martha Street Studio - Located in Winnipeg, they are Manitoba’s only printmaking artist-run centre, studio and gallery.

l'Atelier Presse Papier - Located in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, they are a workshop for artists practicing all printmaking techniques.