I am in Minneapolis, working away on a piece for this exhibition.
Free Radicals: Remixing History Through the Power of Print
February 23 – March 26, 2016
Program: Thursday, February 25, 2016 7:00 pm with Jenny Schmid & Tonja Torgerson Reception: Thursday, February 25, 2016 8:00 – 10:00pm
Curated by Jenny Schmid, Professor of Art, and Howard Oransky, Director of the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Free Radicals: Remixing History Through the Power of Print, considers the power of associative thinking and historical mash-ups in the print medium. Graphic media inherently offers artists the potential to remix or reference history. The artists in this exhibition discuss revolution and employ metaphor in sampling and in the free combination of history and politics that might be more limiting in other disciplines. The pursuit of free association may not appear to be directly activist, but the use of artistic license to draw on the subconscious may be a tool for the deconstruction of assumed paradigms.
Artists in the exhibition include Sandow Birk, Randy Bolton, Julie Buffalohead, Enrique Chagoya, Sue Coe, Wille Cole, Jim Denomie, Fred Hagstrom, John Hitchcock and Emily Arthur, Barbara Kruger, Michael Krueger, Glenn Ligon, Hung Liu, Emmy Lingscheit, Martin Mazorra, Kristin Powers Nowlin, Andrew Raftery, Robert Rauschenberg, John Risseeuw, Roger Shimomura, Lorna Simpson, Piotr Szyhalski, Tonja Torgerson, Ericka Walker, and Valerie Wallace.
To celebrate Print Austin, grayDUCK gallery presents two artists with an atypical approach to printmaking. Out of the Ruined Place finds beauty in unlikely settings. Tonja Torgerson explores human impermanence, decaying/being consumed by nature, with serigraphs, wheat paste graffiti and photography. Margaret Craig uses an invented printing process on discarded plastic to create a luminous Trash Reef installation.
Public Reception: Thursday, December 10 • 6 – 8 pm Juror Talk with Gretchen Schermerhorn at 7pm
Target Gallery explores the fine art of printed matter in this exhibition featuring printmaking, graphic design, illustration, artsits’ books and zines. Our juror for this exhibition was Gretchen Schermerhorn, Artistic Director of Pyramid Atlantic Art Center in Silver Spring, MD.
Participating Artists: Mark Bischel (NY), Tyrus Clutter (FL), Jake Ingram (NY), Annie May Johnston (TX), Michele Montalbano (VA), Leah Oates (NY), Danielle O’Brien (VA), Megan Perra (OR), Maria Victoria Savka (NY), Tania Sen (NJ), Meredith Starr (NY), FICTILIS (CA), Elizabeth Sweeney (VA), Tonja Torgerson (MO), The Wax Paper (NY), Jenny Wiener (FL)
New print, completed recently at Directangle Press in Pittsburgh PA.
Untitled (Vanitas)
letterpress & risograph print
(3 color risograph & letterpress key)
12″ x 18″
Limited edition of 30
Printed in collaboration with Josh Dannin at Directangle Press
Pittsburgh, PA / November 2015
Published by Directangle Editions
June 26 – July 26 RECEPTION June 26 | 5-9pm INSIGHT Art Talk July 9 | 7pm
Memento Mori will feature over a dozen new works by Tonja Torgerson in a variety of mediums, created during a one year printmaking residency at the Lawrence Arts Center.