For Brooklyn-based artist Jacquelyn Strycker, the past few years have been marked by personal and practice-based metamorphoses. While adapting to parenthood, the pandemic, and changes in workspace availability, his approach to burning has evolved to become modular and storable, making the most of limited resources. Strycker is one of eight artists selected to launch New voicesa pilot program in New York Printing Center which was designed to support the professional development of emerging artists who engage meaningfully with print media.
The program’s inaugural exhibition, curated by Brooklyn Museum curator Carmen Hermo with assistance from the center’s exhibitions and programs coordinator Robin Siddall, focuses on notions of transformation and will open June 1 in the renovated gallery on the ground floor of the Print Center New York in Chelsea.
“There was definitely a feeling that many artists were embracing the traditions of the medium, while bringing it together for their own investigations – or even recasting or reimagining the process itself, especially in the wake of pandemic disruptions,” said said Hermo to Hyperallergic by reviewing the pool of nearly 500 applicants across the United States. Joining Strycker in the pioneering New Voices cohort are New York printers Eriko Tsogo, Nina Jordan and Farah Mohammad; Julia Curran from California; Lois Harada of Rhode Island; Indiana’s Aaron Coleman; and Juana Estrada Hernández of Kansas.
“I have drawn a lot of strength from the fierce spaces of self-affirmation and social affirmation that these artists create in their varied practices, and in many of their works there is a kind of space oscillating between and beyond the binaries, divisions, memory, and truth,” Hermo continued.
Hermo and the Print Center New York selected the group of eight to participate in the three-month Expo, engage in a variety of virtual and in-person professional development opportunities over the next six months, and receive unlimited fees of $2,500 each for their inclusion. New Voices is not a residency and does not require artists to create work for the duration of the program, but artists will be brought to New York for a three-day meeting that overlaps with the opening reception of the exposure. This event will include public talks with a variety of print professionals, tours of private exhibits with critics and curators, and behind-the-scenes tours of iconic print venues across the city.
“A key part of this program is that the voices, wants and needs of the artists are what comes first,” Siddall said. “The most requested resource was networking at the in-person meeting in New York, building in time to be with artists, curators, critics and the public, to discuss the work and the artists’ practices and goals. ”
Strycker and Mohammad both expressed excitement about meeting and meeting the rest of the cohort.
Strycker, who has five riso-printed fabric works in the exhibition, said she was looking forward to the opportunity to meet the other artists after revitalizing her printing practice at an external studio with her own riso duplicator. Also based in New York, Mohammad, who has two monotypes and two mixed-media printed works in the exhibition, has relied on the Print Center New York for inspiration for years and wanted the opportunity to work with Hermo and exhibit his work in the nonprofit’s expanded gallery space.
“Transformation is fitting to be the guiding theme for New Voices’ pilot year, as we are in the midst of our own exciting time of change and growth,” said Jenn Bratovich, Director of Exhibits and Programs. Hyperallergic.
“The most obvious example is our move last fall to a ground floor, which dramatically increased our exhibit space and visibility,” she continued. “But the pandemic has also been an opportunity to pause and reflect on the goals and effectiveness of our artist programming and consider how we can leverage our resources to meaningfully support the early-career or under-recognized artists.”
The exhibit will be on view at its opening reception at 6 p.m. from June 1 through August 26 at 535 West 24th Street in Manhattan. Each of the artists will participate in a question-and-answer panel or an artistic creation workshop throughout the summer.
