Ink, Press, Repeat: National Juried Printmaking and Book Art Exhibition

Press Release

Ink, Press, Repeat, a national juried exhibition of traditional and digital print media and book art by 37 professional artists from across the United States, will be on view at the William Paterson University Galleries from January 27 to March 18, 2020 (shortened due to COVID-19). Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and select Saturdays and Sundays (March 7). Admission is free. Ruth Lingen will give a Juror Talk on Tuesday, February 4 from 6 to 7 p.m. followed by an opening reception for the exhibit from 7 to 8 p.m. 

The exhibition, in the South Gallery of the University’s Ben Shahn Center for the Visual Arts, includes a variety of printmaking media such as aquatint, etching, intaglio, isograph, lithograph, monoprint, screen print, silkscreen, woodblock, and woodcut. The exhibition was juried by Ruth Lingen, master printer, book artist, and director of Line Press Limited. Lingen selected 37 artworks by 37 artists hailing from 16 states.  

According to Lingen, many of the works in Ink, Press, Repeat represent the times. “This new decade will be ushered in with hand-printed books and prints that fully represent the human condition at this moment, notably environmental anxiety; racial, gender, and feminist identity; immigration crises; human rights violations, and an uncertain future for all. It is striking to see how dominant these more serious issues were represented in the submissions.” 

The grand-prize winner is Myles Dunigan of Madison, Wisconsin, who will receive a solo exhibition at the University Galleries. With his print Is the Dark Going to Catch Us (2018), the artist explains, "My work explores how imaging technologies, climatological anxieties, and our physical experience of nature collide. In an era of scientific skepticism and ‘fake news,’ reality has become pervaded by uncertainty. I employ myriad printmaking, photography, and digital methods to build densely layered, liminal prints that subtly investigate the verity of landscape imagery. By constructing and documenting models that embody a dialectic between observed and fabricated nature, my practice operates as an extended metaphor for broad-reaching uncertainties regarding human impact on the ecosystem and the sustainability of our world. Styrofoam rocks populate prairies. Digitally generated fog obfuscates rocky coastlines. Vistas become layered to the point of being nearly indiscernible. Sometimes apocalyptic, sometimes meditative, I meticulously distill the tropes of pictorial landscape imagery to ultimately arrive at no place, nowhere: the culmination of our collective anxiety.” 

Other artists in the exhibition are Yasmeen Abedifard (Ithaca, NY), Rosaire Appel (New York, NY), Eileen Arnow-Levine (Levittown, NY), Edward Bernstein (Bloomington, IN), Caroline Burton (Jersey City, NJ), Myles Calvert (Alfred, NY), Brigitte Caramanna (Centreville, VA), Cassandra Clark (Brooklyn, NY), David Curcio (Watertown, MA), Michael DalCerro (Lyndhurst, NJ), Anne Gilman (Brooklyn, NY), Anna Hoberman (Brooklyn, NY), Cary Hulbert (Brooklyn, NY), Cristina Igelmo (Lexington, KY), India Johnson (Iowa City, IA), Patti Jordan (Montclair, NJ), Tatana Kellner and Ann Kalabach (Kingston, NY), Morteza Khakshoor (Irvine, CA), Lanxuan Florence Liu (Chicago, IL), Emily Martin (Iowa City, IA), Charles Mason III (Baltimore, MD), Sarah McDermott (Huntington, WV), Nathan Meltz (Troy, NY), Toby Millman (Hamtramck, MI), Chris Mona (Annapolis, MD), Northwoods Book Art Guild (Fairbanks, AK), Kristin Powers Nowlin (Manhattan, KS), Amee Pollack and Laurie Spitz (Highland Park, NJ), Kasey Ramirez (Jackson, NJ), Red Sagalow (New York, NY), Marcos Salazar (Paterson, NJ), K Sarrantonio (Brooklyn, NY), Amanda Thackray (Newark, NJ), Amy Thompson (Salt Lake City, UT), Christine Lee Tyler (Yonkers, NY), and  Jeff Wetzig (Frederic, WI). 

Ruth Lingen lives and works in New York City, where she has established a distinguished 25-year career as a master printer and book artist. Lingen has collaborated with over 70 celebrated artists and writers, including Jim Dine, Kiki Smith, Leonardo Drew, Shepard Fairey, Robert Ryman, Mary Heilmann, Jessica Stockholder, Jane Hammond, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Creeley, and Matthew Day Jackson. She was the founding director of Pace Paper, a Brooklyn papermaking facility for Pace Prints, from 2008 through 2018, and continues to consult on special projects for Pace Prints, as well as direct Line Press Limited, a workshop in Brooklyn devoted to artist books and small-scale print editions. She has received lifetime achievement awards in both papermaking and the book arts. Her personal practice is based in language, sometimes combined with a historical twist, and employs hand-set type and letterpress, often combined with lithography and handmade paper. Her work can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Getty, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Walker Museum, as well as over 35 libraries, including the New York Public Library and the Harvard University Library. 

Ink, Press, Repeat is one of three exhibitions on view concurrently in the William Paterson University Galleries. Casey Gardner: Wonder Might Ignite, on view in the East Gallery, features artist books and prints by the Grand Prize recipient of the 2018 Ink, Press, Repeat exhibition. On view in the Court Gallery, artist Marion Wilson investigates ecology and landscapes that foster a closer connection to self and place through her photographs, paintings, and installations in Marion Wilson: The Landscape Is Sanctuary to Our Fears. 

This exhibition is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. The William Paterson University Galleries are wheelchair-accessible. Large-print educational materials are available. For additional information, please call the William Paterson University Galleries at 973-720-2654.