The Nevada Printmaking Network (NPN) is a new virtual network of artists who identify as printmakers, no matter how traditional or conceptual their media and technique. The NPN was founded with the intent of connecting printmakers across the state. Initially an online listserv, the NPN started hosting physical events, including meetups, critiques and workshops.
As part of this mission of connecting artists, the NPN is organizing its first statewide printmaking exchange. Printmakers are invited to create an original edition of prints in response to the theme “Making Your Mark.” This portfolio of prints will range in printmaking techniques: lithography, collagraph, monotype, etching, woodblock, silkscreen, letterpress, and more. Each artist is invited to interpret the theme differently, creating a variety of subject matters that all showcase the diversity of printmakers across the state. Artists can range from established career artists to students, and may vary in location across the state.
In part, this portfolio is a time capsule, and captures a glimpse of what kind of work is being made across the state. Printmaking is a broad term for several specific techniques, but also connotes an approach to artistic practice. Printmakers are craftspeople, with oral and kinetic traditions. There is a particular culture in the print shop. Bringing printmakers together, across distance and career levels, we want to see connections and collaborations form between previous strangers.
Printmaking is a democratizing media: it has long been used as a media for mass communication. This diverse group of prints shows the potential for art as a means to connect artists across geography and media. The Nevada Printmaking Network hopes this exhibition can show the arts public the breadth and depth of printmaking as a medium, as well as share the works being made by artists statewide.
Once artists sign up to participate, there is a $15 registration fee to pay for administrative costs and potential future exhibition costs.
Artists are not registered until they pay the registration fee via this link: https://paypal.me/laurareese1
All participating artists will receive a portfolio of assorted prints.
Basic Exhibition Details:
Work must be a printmaking medium.
Unframed: 15×11” and 11×15”
Edition of 15
About the organizer: Lauren Myers Reese (she/he/they) is an interdisciplinary creative, educator, and arts administrator living in Paradise, NV. She received her MFA from the University of Nevada Las Vegas in 2022, and BFA from the University of Oklahoma in 2012. They have worked as an independent curator, journalist, non-profit director, and factory worker. Currently, Lauren works as education coordinator for Clark County Public Arts and adjunct instructor at the College of Southern Nevada.
