The University of Dallas printmaking department teamed up with Brookhaven College, Texas Christian University (TCU), University of North Texas (UNT) and University of Texas Arlington (UTA) to host the Southern Graphics Council International (SGCI) this year. SGCIl is an educational, non-profit organization representing artists of original prints, drawings, books, handmade paper and more.
The 2019 SCGI website, with the theme “Texchange,” states that the conference “engages the capacity of printmaking to act as an agent of transformation in its practices within the field, contributions to other art media, and larger cultural roles. Prints are celebrated for the ways in which they spread images, information, ideas, and political views. Through shared spaces and collaborations, printmakers influence other artists, innovators, and disciplines. With printmaking, we create change together.”
Printmaking professor Steven Foutch was on the steering committee for SGCI Texchange.
“I had a great experience planning the conference,” Foutch said. “The planning phase lasted nearly three years. In addition to the events at UD, I was responsible for all of the printmaking demonstrations that took place during the conference. Those demonstrations took place at UTA, UNT, TCU and Brookhaven.”
Professor Emeritus Juergen Strunck, who taught at UD for 46 years, was recognized at this conference for his innovative contributions to the field of printmaking.
Strunck’s solo exhibition “juergen strunck prints: no secrets” is now showing in the Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery. His prints are known for their luminous gradients of color, complex geometric shapes and exquisite symmetrical arrangements.
The process of his printing method is less known, hence the title of his exhibition. Along with Strunck’s prints on display in the gallery are the tools and materials he uses to create these wonderfully unique works of art.
Alongside “juergen strunck prints: no secrets,” collaborating graphic artists and professors Nicholas Ruth and Erik Waterkotte feature a site-specific installation, called “Interstitial.” This installation is located inside the Loggia, directly outside the Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery.
Ruth and Waterkotte complicate the viewer’s perceptions of interior and exterior spaces through a process of masking and veiling existing architecture with vinyl cutouts and prints that are directly applied to the glass windows.
This exhibit was made possible with the help of printmaking graduates and undergraduates BreAnn Brunelle, Emily Duffy, Anna Fojut, Mary Hellerman, Brian Hensen, Kate McGuinn, Molly McNab, Calli Nissen, Richie Peña, Claire Schwartz, Lucy Stariha, Francis Villanueva and Emily Wingert.
“Interstitial” is a unique visual experience, captivating the view of the wooded landscape by transforming the existing interior of the gallery space. It creates a fabricated landscape of voided billboards and overgrown shrubbery. These two artists state that they are inspired by “phenomenological inquiry rendered visible [by] the potential commodification of everything in sight.”
The galleries are being showcased in the Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery until March 31.
