Left: Essence Enwere Right: Suriya SamKhuth
Minneapolis, MN – Highpoint Center for Printmaking is pleased to announce the 2025-26 Full Color Printmaking Fellows: Essence Enwere and Suriya SamKhuth. This yearlong fellowship will provide the artists with access to Highpoint’s cooperative print studio, learning opportunities through Highpoint classes and individual instruction, professional development and mentorship, a monetary award, exhibition opportunities, and more.
Suriya SamKhuth (she/her) situates her practice within a lineage of artists who follow, trace, and rewrite the presence of transness into history. She bridges the languages of screenprinting, photography, and collage to form paper assemblages that hope to keep record and keep safe trans/queer memory and the knowledge they carry. Processes of listening to, writing on, unfolding, and reshaping fragments serve as gestures toward reflecting through ideas of origin, archives, ancestry, and transformation.
Suriya is grateful to have participated in residencies and fellowships at the Emerging Curators Institute, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Chautauqua School of Art, and Public Functionary’s Studio 400 Incubator program. Most recently, Suriya completed a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship where she immersed herself within the practices of transgender artists, collectives, and archives in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Argentina, the Netherlands, Cambodia, and Thailand.
Suriya said: “As a Full Color Fellow, I want to challenge myself to create a series of large-scale collages inspired by newfound printmaking techniques and my exchanges with trans women across languages, geographies, and generations. I also hope to continue screen-printing my original photographs and designs on clothing and textiles.”
Essence Enwere (they/them) is a Black and queer interdisciplinary artist living and working on occupied Očeti Šakówin and Wahpekute land, now known as Minneapolis, MN. They received their BFA from the University of Minnesota in 2024. Enwere’s work fuses design and type with artist publications and printmaking to tell stories of Black history, genealogy, and ecology. Their practice seeks to honor ancestry while reimagining connections between identity, land, and memory. Their work and practice have been featured in Artdose Magazine, The Minnesota Star Tribune, MPLSArt, KARE 11, and MSPMAG. Many of their artworks are held in collections nationally including the National Gallery of Art Library, Minnesota Historical Society, University of Minnesota , and Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.
Essence said: “I have plans to make many new artist books as well as large scale prints. I’ve made small intimate artist books, which I will continue to do. But what does it look like in my practice to make large scale prints, and more complicated books, to take up space in new ways?”
About the panelists
Jasper Duberry has held a passion for art since he was child. In school he would render his favorite cartoons in hand drawn coloring sheets that he would supply for his classmates. Later, as an undergraduate student at Viterbo University in La Crosse Wisconsin he discovered the printmaking tradition of woodcut relief printing. The meditative process resonated with Duberry and allowed him to explore the relevant themes behind his work. At Viterbo, Duberry focused on art education and continues this by doing various volunteer events, artists talks and workshops with students in hopes of passing on education and exposure to printmaking as well. In 2022, Duberry was a Full Color Print Fellow at Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis. The experience provided access to state-of-the-art facilities and a community of artists that could provide technical and conceptual support for his creative process and blossoming career as a printmaker. Upon completion of the fellowship, Duberry joined Highpoint as co-op member and is an active participant in the printmaking community.
Anda Tanaka is a Minnesota-based artist and educator working primarily in printmaking and drawing. She has exhibited nationally, most recently with a solo show at the Schaefer Art Gallery at Gustavus Adolphus College. Anda holds a BA in music and studio art from St. Olaf College, an MFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and has completed a two-year Printing Apprenticeship with Highpoint Editions at Highpoint Center for Printmaking. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Drawing and Printmaking at St. Olaf College. When not in the studio, you can find Anda outside cycling, running, cross country skiing, open water swimming, or walking her cats, Triskit and Millie.
Highpoint would like to thank Jasper and Anda for their careful, thoughtful evaluation of the submitted applications.
The Full Color Print Fellowship Program at Highpoint was developed with a steering committee in 2019 to eliminate barriers to printmaking studio access for Minnesota artists from racial and ethnic communities that have been underrepresented within the cooperative printshop.