Nancy Ariza (left) and Lila Shull (right)
For 2026 McKnight Fellows Nancy Ariza and Lila Shull, sustained time in the studio has created room to experiment, follow unexpected ideas, and take on projects that demand patience.
For Ariza, that has meant stepping outside her usual ways of working. She has given herself permission to play , exploring new combinations of processes. So far, the experimentation “has resulted in creating woodtype broadsides, pressure prints, and new technical combinations to strengthen the connection between my printmaking practice and textile work,” she said.
Ariza’s research continues to investigate Mexican leatherworking traditions, while expanding into other forms of artesanía, including weaving, knot tying, and cross-stitch. She has also been looking closely at embroidery patterns from Mexico. These material and cultural references are helping her further explore “themes of displacement, grief, and longing within the context of Mexican-American identity and bicultural lived experience.”
The freedom to explore without immediately knowing where the work will lead has become a meaningful aspect of the fellowship for Ariza. “It’s been a gift to have spent the first half of the fellowship exploring process and research,” she said. “It feels like a long-term investment in my practice as these ideas and techniques will continue to fuel my work for the next several years.” Stepping outside her comfort zone has also brought new problem solving and clarity around ideas as she begins to shift toward production for the exhibition.
Shull’s work has demanded a different kind of patience. She has been developing a series of detailed lithographic prints that, when aligned edge to edge, create repeating patterns. Tiled together the large works become quilt-like compositions. Additional painted imagery builds on the printed surfaces, combining printmaking and painting techniques.
Shull is working on a large series of life-sized quilts for the exhibition and the process has not always moved in a straight line. “I have fallen in and out of finding a rhythm,” she said. With the benefit of time and financial support afforded through the fellowship, Shull was able to engage in travel, including a recent “printmaking sprint” at a studio in Kansas with classmates from graduate school, which provided refreshed inspiration and energy.
The scale and ambition of Shull’s project have made time itself an essential element. “The McKnight Fellowship provides the necessary support to tackle long timelines in the studio,” she said. Producing each component by hand before assembling the larger compositions requires space, endurance, and time. The process has also pushed her to balance her intuitive approach to making with more methodical planning.
Alongside the ambitious quilt works, Shull is developing smaller intaglio prints that explore related ideas on a more intimate scale. The smaller etchings provide a counterpoint to the quilts, an opportunity for play without pressure and to work through ideas, layouts, and color. “This challenge has been fun,” she said, “and developing the etchings alongside the lithographic quilts helps to balance out the two gears I'm operating in: slow(ish) and slow(er).”
As both artists move into the second half of the fellowship, their work is beginning to shift from exploration toward realization. In October, Ariza and Shull will welcome Marcela Guerrero for studio visits, followed this winter by a visit from Jen Bervin, who will meet with each artist and lead a walkthrough of the exhibition. The McKnight Printmaking Fellowship Exhibition will open February 6, 2027.
About the Artists:
Lila Shull (she/her) is a printmaker based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Working in printmaking, painting, and drawing, her practice pays particular attention to the shift between objects and patterns related to memory. This work wrestles with the problems (and possibilities) that arise from unreliable personal narratives.
Shull holds her MFA from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and a BFA from Winthrop University in Rock Hill SC. She has been awarded residencies at In Cahoots, Arrowmont School of Crafts, and Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, Poland. Her work has been shown nationally at the Foley and Unix Galleries in New York City, Coagula Curatorial in Los Angeles, CA, Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC, Devos Art Museum in Marquette, MI, Janet Turner Print Museum at California State University in Chico, CA and at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. Lila is the Marketing & Proposal Coordinator for a native-owned general contractor, Woodstone Inc.
Nancy Ariza (she/her) is a Mexican American visual artist and educator. Drawing from her Mexican heritage, Ariza’s artistic practice explores the themes of cultural preservation and memory, familial ties, and storytelling, expressed through a combination of traditional and alternative printmaking processes, natural pigments, and textiles.
Ariza has exhibited across the United States at Hecho a Mano, Santa Fe, NM; Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco, CA; Janet Turner Print Museum at California State University in Chico, CA; Prospectus Gallery in Chicago, IL; among others. She has received awards from Center for Craft, McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, and Forecast Public Art. Her work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA and National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, IL.
Ariza holds an MA in Education and Graduate Certificate in Culturally Responsive Teaching from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, as well as a BFA in Printmaking and BA in Art History from Minnesota State University, Mankato.
About the Review Panelists:
Jazmine Catasús is Artistic Director and one of the Master Printers of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (RBPMW) at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts (EFA). She has been involved with EFA RBPMW since 2013. Catasús works with community members and the public within the printshop facilities and the archive. She has collaborated on printmaking projects with artists such as Lizanina Cruz, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Dindga McCannon. Catasús has led printmaking workshops at several institutions, including the Center for Contemporary Printmaking (Norwalk, CT), Print Center New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. She is also a Visiting Assistant Professor at Pratt Institute.
Sean Caulfield was named a Canada Research Chair in Fine Arts (Tier 2) from 2001 – 2011, Centennial Professor from 2011 – 2021, and is currently a Professor in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta, living and working in Treaty Six territory, Amiskwaciy Waskahikan, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He has exhibited his prints, drawings, installations and artist’s books extensively throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and Japan. Recent exhibitions include: Found Anatomies, Peter Robertson Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (2022); The Flood, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (2016); The Body in Question(s), UQAM Gallery, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (2012); Perceptions of Promise, Chelsea Art Museum, New York, USA/Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta (2011).
Caulfield has received numerous grants and awards for his work including: The Special Award of the Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Krakow Triennial, 2015; SSHRC Dissemination Grant: Canadian Stem Cell Network Impact Grant; SSHRC Fine Arts Creation Grant; Canada Council Travel Grant; and a Visual Arts Fellowship, Illinois Arts Council, Illinois, USA. Caulfield’s work is in various public and private collections including: Houghton Library, Harvard University, USA; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England; Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA. In 2017 Caulfield was elected to the Arts Division of the Academy of the Arts and Humanities of the Royal Society of Canada.
The McKnight Printmaking Fellowships are open Minnesota artist/printmakers who are at a career stage that is “beyond emerging” — defined here as artists who demonstrate a sustained level of accomplishment, commitment, and artistic excellence. Fellows are selected on the basis of the artistic merit of their work, and their dedication, interest, and contributions to Minnesota’s arts ecosystem.
