Staff Picks!

The Chicago Printmakers Collaborative is excited to present a show which highlights the unique interests and passions of our staff members! Inspired by “staff picks” shelves in bookstores, this is an exhibition of prints and printmakers that our teachers and staff think are worthy of special recommendation for your viewing pleasure.

Combining the distinct curatorial visions of six different printmakers resulted in a diverse collection of work, spanning a wide range of styles and mediums. While some staff curators dove deep into CPC’s collection to find golden oldies that rarely get to see the light of day, others opted to include new work by contemporary Chicago artists. Old and new, earnest and whimsical, this show has a little something for everyone!

Jack Spector-Bishop’s Picks: “Printmaking is a centuries-long conversation through images, constantly turning back upon itself for inspiration and always ending up the brunt of the joke. These pieces exemplify the humor, grotesquerie, and commitment to the poor image that has brought me back to the medium again and again.”

Maddie May’s Picks: “The works I chose are especially interesting to me as they all place the viewer as a spectator within a variety of domestic scenes and predicaments. Each artist handles illustrations of interiors, exteriors, household objects, and scenes of everyday life in differing ways. I was also drawn to the types of light depicted and how the marks from varying printmaking processes portrayed them. From light pouring in through a window, to a bedside lamp casting heavy shadows up the wall, each print feels like a window into another emotional realm.”

Eric Wilson’s Picks: “We all have our worlds that we live in, inside of our heads, outside of reality.
These artists show us what the world looks like to them, not with beauty and perfection but honesty and humor.”

Carl Voss’ Picks: “Each of these pieces speaks to me in a different way. Sonnenzimmer’s piece shows an unrivaled ability to completely transform a surface, with exquisite control of texture, color, and clarity of design. Sterling’s etching shows the breakdown of borders and the flattening of the visual space that mirrors the paper itself. Finally, Bodett weaves visual poetry for what can hold, what is empty, what is resaid, and what cannot be said at all.”

JJ McLuckie’s Picks: “When I see the pieces chosen together they reminisce on the cruelty man exerts trying to solve it’s problems and the comfort nature provides in response solely through existing. Texture is one of the most comforting aspects to me, so the artists’ intense attention to the way textures interact within these all provide me with a melancholy joy being able to visually feel each piece.”

Megan Sterling’s Picks: “This collection of pieces by young women or non-binary Chicago artists showcases a dynamic range of conceptually engaging and technically sound printmaking work. Each print presents a transient relationship to the figure— fleeting traces of holding space, losing space; holding self, losing self; holding memory, losing memory. They are all a potential means to contemplate the body and its relationship to space, time, others, and ourselves.”