Constellation Studios is pleased to host Stephanie Wright, as a Guest Artist-in-Residence, a new program to foster local artists for special projects. Her current body of work focusing on large scale drypoint prints on paper, will open on August 6 for First Friday, expand with new work throughout her residency and end September 25th with the installation and imagery transformed. Stephanie’s prints use animal imagery to activate a narrative of interrelationships and emotions of love, nurturing, rage, jealousy, social anxiety, fear and contemplation.
Stephanie has an uncanny drawing ability to capture such instinctual moods, through a turn of the head, glance of an eye, a furrow or eyelid lift, that wordlessly conveys such a range of emotions. She builds tensions through groupings, using space and placement to create isolation or movement. She scratches on plastic sheets with an etching needle to make a roughly textured image, which catches the printer’s ink when the plate surface is wiped. The plastic plate is run through the etching press with damped paper to impress the inky image into paper. In this way she can work directly and on a large scale, creating the enormity of an emotional body manifesting in flesh, hair, fur and faces, twisted in response to its own sentience.
Stephanie Wright earned her MFA at the University of Nebraska with a focus in Printmaking in the spring of 2017. She grew up in Louisiana and earned her BFA at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2014. She is an instructor and gallery manager at Live Yes Studios, Lincoln.
Artist in Residence Elizabeth Katt will be working at Constellation Studios this summer to continue her performance/action, “an accounting” begun in 2020. By hand, she meticulously documents each death due to coronavirus in the United States – one tally for each life lost, according to data from Worldometer and Columbia University. The piece’s significance is apparent as heaps of adding machine tape attest to COVID-19’s toll. Since starting the piece Katt’s silent labor has used 43 rolls of tape and will be continuing as she aims to document losses to date. Katt says out loud the number of lives lost to COVID-19 per day. It is her way of coming to terms with the inconceivable losses the US has suffered – breaking down the number 615,679 into small, manageable chunks. It drives home the fact that these losses were incremental and cumulative, each day filled with preventable death.
Katt will be at the studio 1-5 each Tuesday and Thursday, June 22 – end of July.
Katt is a current MFA graduate student at the University of Maryland College Park, and she received her BFA from the UNL School of Art, Art History & Design in 2016.
Artist in Residence Elizabeth Katt will be working at Constellation Studios this summer to continue her performance/action, “an accounting” begun in 2020. By hand, she meticulously documents each death due to coronavirus in the United States – one tally for each life lost, according to data from Worldometer and Columbia University. The piece’s significance is apparent as heaps of adding machine tape attest to COVID-19’s toll. Since starting the piece Katt’s silent labor has used 43 rolls of tape and will be continuing as she aims to document losses to date. Katt says out loud the number of lives lost to COVID-19 per day. It is her way of coming to terms with the inconceivable losses the US has suffered – breaking down the number 615,679 into small, manageable chunks. It drives home the fact that these losses were incremental and cumulative, each day filled with preventable death.
Katt will be at the studio 1-5 each Tuesday and Thursday, June 22 – end of July. She will be working during First Friday July 2, 6-8pm.
Katt is a current MFA graduate student at the University of Maryland College Park, and she received her BFA from the UNL School of Art, Art History & Design in 2016.
Artist in Residence Elizabeth Katt will be working at Constellation Studios this summer to continue her performance/action, “an accounting” begun in 2020. By hand, she meticulously documents each death due to coronavirus in the United States – one tally for each life lost, according to data from Worldometer and Columbia University. The piece’s significance is apparent as heaps of adding machine tape attest to COVID-19’s toll. Since starting the piece Katt’s silent labor has used 43 rolls of tape and will be continuing as she aims to document losses to date. Katt says out loud the number of lives lost to COVID-19 per day. It is her way of coming to terms with the inconceivable losses the US has suffered – breaking down the number 615,679 into small, manageable chunks. It drives home the fact that these losses were incremental and cumulative, each day filled with preventable death.
Katt will be at the studio 1-5 each Tuesday and Thursday, June 22 – end of July. She will be working during First Friday July 2, 6-8pm.
Katt is a current MFA graduate student at the University of Maryland College Park, and she received her BFA from the UNL School of Art, Art History & Design in 2016.
Artist in Residence Elizabeth Katt will be working at Constellation Studios this summer to continue her performance/action, “an accounting” begun in 2020. By hand, she meticulously documents each death due to coronavirus in the United States – one tally for each life lost, according to data from Worldometer and Columbia University. The piece’s significance is apparent as heaps of adding machine tape attest to COVID-19’s toll. Since starting the piece Katt’s silent labor has used 43 rolls of tape and will be continuing as she aims to document losses to date. Katt says out loud the number of lives lost to COVID-19 per day. It is her way of coming to terms with the inconceivable losses the US has suffered – breaking down the number 615,679 into small, manageable chunks. It drives home the fact that these losses were incremental and cumulative, each day filled with preventable death.
Katt will be at the studio 1-5 each Tuesday and Thursday, June 22 – end of July. She will be working during First Friday July 2, 6-8pm.
Katt is a current MFA graduate student at the University of Maryland College Park, and she received her BFA from the UNL School of Art, Art History & Design in 2016.
Two artists from Tokyo Japan have been in residence here during November. Kazuko Araki and Kaoru Morita are sharing a great experience for concentration on their printmaking and enjoying cultural exchange. This is their first visit to the USA, and they are seeing Nebraska go through all the drama of fall to winter changes, while enjoying the open prairie landscape, football crowds, and studio activities of exhibitions and workshops. We are enjoying our language efforts and translations about life and printmaking! Special thanks to the Center for the Science of Human Endeavor in Tokyo for continuing to facilitating this exchange opportunity for Japanese artists!
Kaoru is working in Mokuhanga (Japanese watercolor woodblock) with soft colors printed by hand, one each day for a color record of atmosphere and influences. She specializes in shallow carving into the woodblock, so that beautiful nuances of tone are printed. Her drawing is here of a still life from some of the handblown glass pieces of Kenny Walton, and her woodblock print from this image is just getting underway.
Kazuko has created two editions of collagraph prints, from multiple cardboard plates, that have textures and drypoint scratches that hold the ink, printed in registration for a constructivist landscape for mountain goats. She is inventive with her platemaking and the beautiful printed layers. These two artist friends have studied printmaking together at the Musashino Art School in Tokyo.
Jenene Nagy spent an intense week of carving thin lines onto woodblocks and printing onto silk fabric with silver and graphite oil base inks to create a collection of “flags”. Her work plays with the formation of signs from the negative and positive shapes and repetitions, as the flags are grouped to create optical new interior spaces and contrasting “afterimages”. She is interested in how “the flat graphic print becomes activated in space through the physicality of its material”. We experienced this visual versatility through the floating of the silks……beautifully flowing as we carefully handled and printed the sensuous fabrics and while looking through and within each. Jenene will use these printed flags for an upcoming installation/sculptural project to be presented in New York this spring. We are so proud to have been instrumental in this important production!
Jenene Nagy is a teacher and curator who lives in the Los Angeles area.
Artist in Residence Aya Nakamura has been in the studio throughout November, working on a huge painting/drawing on canvas, and enjoyed have the wall and space! Aya is from Tokyo, Japan, and enjoyed the quiet pace and light in Nebraska. She also worked on woodcuts combined with painting, and dived into learning about oil-base ink for woodcut methods (the image below is of her woodcut in the drying rack, so an unusual perspective here). Her works in animation are featured in the programing on Thursdays and Fridays at the CUBE Art Project of Lincoln, in the Haymarket Railyard. This is our giant outdoor digital projection site, and the art series are by artists from all over the world. https://www.cubelincoln.com/
So great to have Aya here, and thank you for joining the Constellation Studios community.
Marnix & Veronique came from Ghent, Belgium for a two week residency at Constellation Studios. Marnix developed his copperplate etchings with non-toxic BIG ground and acrylic aquatint for a new print series that suggests science-like instructions and images. While Veronique developed her own cut paper image sources from design magazines to create meticulous and humorous collages. They enjoyed summertime and fireworks in Lincoln, and their time for a creative retreat. So great to have you here and look for your return soon so we can continue our conversations!
Sarah Turner, an artist from Detroit, was in residence at Constellation Studios for two weeks in April. She worked on a series of prints made from inked objects and found materials, transferring detailed impressions, that literally spoke about form and function, of everyday detritus, and elegant simplicity. She delighted in her discoveries from the hardware and thrift stores, and how to find the right pressure to capture the hidden textures.
Shiho, from Tokyo, Japan, spent the month of November at Constellation Studios, and worked well in the rhythm of life in Lincoln, and with her own creative discipline. She planned and accomplished a large multi-sheet monoprint that addresses the subtleties of luxury fabrics and the fashion world. She also experimented with drypoint prints made from thousands of minute scratches on plastic plates, that she printed with water-base inks. This technique, new for her, enabled her to make a small series of journal-like images from her experiences in Nebraska, and then a complex 4 part detailed image of a model on the runway and the audience. Shiho demonstrated incredible persistence and patience to realize her print projects! All so impressive for our First Friday visitors. Thanks for your residency Shiho!
Join us for an in depth viewing of Metropolis & Invisible Cities.
Meet Artist in Residence Shiho Saito, from Tokyo, Japan. She has been in residence for a month creating monoprints and drypoint prints on Japanese papers, that reflect on fashion and elegance with spare and delicate marks.
