On view: May 3 - 31, 2025

Join us for the annual ACCESS/PRINT exhibition reception on May 3rd, 1 - 4 pm. The show will include artwork from students in Highpoint’s teen mentorship program. ACCESS/PRINT exhibiting artists include: Jamie Davis, Alexander Doll, Sotheara Ky, Giavana Macias, Hades Nyasani, Aurora Penasco Gouin, Jamie Quinn, Orpheus Swanson, Aza Williams-Carpenter. Exhibitions are always free and open to the public – come support the artists and learn about the work they created during this unique program!

ACCESS/PRINT is a teen mentorship program that supports creative youth with over 75 hours of studio time, printmaking tutorials, technical assistance, and support as they create a body of work. 

“This semester's cohort of students is incredibly passionate and determined to push themselves in their respective artistic practices. I’m amazed by the concepts that they come up with and their openness to experiment. I admire the relationships and trust they have forged with one another, contributing to a supportive environment where they are able to push themselves and create a solid exhibition of work.”
– ACCESS/PRINT Coordinator, Gabi Estrada

ACCESS/PRINT ARTWORK HIGHLIGHTS:

Jaime Quinn's project will include a collection of soft sculptures made of printed fabrics. Their goal is to encapsulate different aspects of their life and personality into each sculpture, creating an abstract self portrait.

Givi Macias’ hopes to communicate the complex feelings around moments of change in life. They plan for an installation piece that features swarming butterflies flying over and around a central print. 

Alexander Doll plans to create a body of work about blood, blood relations with their mother, and how they interpret what that looks and feels like through a series of layered, abstract prints. 

Hades Nyasani's project will contain a multimedia installation of screen and relief prints on various found fabrics. Conceptually, they aim to encapsulate the iconography of their own life with work that feels bright, playful, and fun.

Aza Williams-Carpenter plans to explore ideas of nostalgia and childhood imagination. Through layered, translucent screenprints, they will create a collage of a dream-like environment. 

Exhibition on view: March 7 - April 19, 2025

Opening Reception: Friday, March 7; 6:30 - 9pm

Public gallery conversation with the artists and guest moderator Teréz Iacovino : Saturday, March 15; 5 - 6pm (recording available below)

Highpoint is pleased to present the 2024 McKnight Printmaking Fellowship Exhibition. The exhibition features work created throughout their fellowship year, including an incredible collection of mixed media print-based work that incorporates lithography, collagraphy, collage, letterpress, embroidery, bookmaking, and more. Although the body of work each artist presents differs, both collections are filled with highly detailed, delicate, subtle, and personal imagery, documenting themes of loss, memory, home, and meditation.

About the artists:
Grace Sippy earned her BFA in Printmaking with Honors at the University of Iowa and her MFA in Printmaking at the University of Alberta. She has taught at the University of Alberta, the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and Highpoint Center for Printmaking. Grace’s work explores dualities, often between mind and body, and combines traditional and contemporary, hand-based and digital printmaking methods. She has exhibited nationally and internationally across Europe and Asia, earning much recognition in her field. 

During the fellowship year, Sippy dove deep into exploration through a series of collagraph prints transforming garments once worn by her two young children. Sippy says, “The transformation of the garment to a printing matrix is a paradox, destroying the garment in the process but creating something new, a remnant of what was there. My fellowship work presents a reflection of loss and grief: of hopes of having a child, of a child since grown, and the loss of a child.” 

Fidencio Fifield-Perez was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, but raised in the U.S. after his family migrated. His current work examines borders, edges, and the people who must traverse them. In his work, Fifield-Perez’s interdisciplinary practice centers on the materiality of paper ephemera, everyday self-documents discarded after fulfilling their purpose. Fidencio Fifield-Perez received his BFA from Memphis College of Art and an MA & MFA from The University of Iowa. He has completed artist residencies at The Studios at MASS MoCA, Ox-Bow, ACRE, Crosstown Arts, and the Galveston Artist Residency, among others. 

Over the last year, Fifield-Perez has begun to reintroduce the figure into his work. This began with a beautifully rendered stone lithograph depicting his chosen family. He said that previous works, “relied on protection through abstraction. Important documents were shrouded and obscured by the depictions of indoor plants. But in new works, the bodies are present, while often furtive, cut, and embossed.”

We are also excited to welcome Teréz Iacovino to moderate a conversation between 2024 McKnight Printmaking Fellows Grace Sippy and Fidencio Fifield-Perez on their practice, work, and other related topics. The audience will also have the opportunity to ask questions of the artists and Iacovino during the conversation. 
About Teréz Iacovino: Teréz Iacovino is the Assistant curator of the Katherine E. Nash Gallery, operated by the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota. Her curatorial practice is continually shaped by the artists she works with, the students she mentors, and her experience as a Latina and first-generation graduate working in academia. Iacovino is the recipient of a Curatorial Research Fellowship Grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and is a 2024 National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Leadership Institute Fellow. Recent publications include “Unpacking the Portmanteau: Locating Diasporican Art” as part of Nuyorican & Diasporican Visual Art: A Critical Anthology (Duke University Press).

Highpoint would like to express our gratitude to the McKnight Foundation for their generous support of this program and Minnesota artists. thank Mike Cloud (visual artist and Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies at Northwestern University) and Rachel Skokowski (Director of Galleries and Turner Curator at California State University Chico) for providing their expert insight in reviewing the applications for the 2023 fellowship. We’d also like to thank Miguel Aragon (visual artist and Associate Professor in Printmaking at CUNY College of Staten Island), Emma Nishimura (visual artist and Assistant Professor at OCAD University in Toronto), and Xuxa Rodríguez (Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Curator of Contemporary Art at Duke University) for taking time out of their busy schedules to travel to Minnesota to conduct studio visits with Grace and Fidencio.

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.

Hot off the Press

Highpoint’s 44th Co-op Member Exhibition

ON VIEW: July 26 - August 24, 2024

OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY, July 26 FROM 6:30-9 PM

OPENING Weekend 20% sale: Friday July 26 and Saturday, July 27

This exhibition will also provide opportunity to celebrate the life and work of Sally Gordon, a beloved friend, artist, and co-op member who passed unexpectedly in May 2024. With the permission of her family, we will showcase a selection of the awe-inspiring lithographs she made during her 20+ years as a member of the Highpoint co-op.

EXHIBITION ON VIEW: June 14 - July 20, 2024

OPENING RECEPTION (with artist remarks): FRIDAY, June 21; 6:30 - 9 PM

Please join Highpoint Center for Printmaking in celebrating the 2023-2024 Jerome Early Career Printmakers at their culminating exhibition. Artists Mei Lam So, Izzy Shinn, and Gidinatiy Hartman will present a new work created during their residency, including a collection of intaglio, relief, and lithographic prints. 

Mei, Gidinatiy, and Izzy each investigate identity and personal experience through their distinctive styles of figuration. The work is remarkable, thoughtfully imaginative, and skillfully executed. 

Fundamentally, a print is an image transferred from a matrix onto a substrate, and in that sense, much of the work featured in this exhibition employs traditional printmaking techniques. However, this work was not made without risk and discovery – Gidinaitiy learned stone lithography, arguably one of the most challenging printmaking techniques, Mei eschewed the customary copper or zinc plate in favor of a material called Cintra for her series of drypoint prints, and Izzy incorporated carefully cut, colored paper additions into their intaglio prints.

Read on to learn more about each artist and their work:

Mei Lam So 

Mei is excited to share a new series of work that represents a directional change in both style and technique. While drypoint is not new to Mei, this series she presents utilizes a different material as the matrix. By incorporating monotype layers into the background, Mei’s work features a dynamic application of color, directing the viewer’s attention throughout the print. Mei will also showcase lithography, ceramics, and a print installation in the exhibition. Mei says the residency, especially the past few months, “have gone by fast. I’ve gained valuable feedback from co-op members through community critiques and short catch-ups in the studio and have incorporated them into my practice.”

Mei Lam So (she/her) is a Minneapolis-based visual artist whose medium includes printmaking, textile printing, and ceramics. She received her MFA in Printmaking and Ceramics from the University of Iowa and her BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Originally from Hong Kong, Mei examines the acculturation process of bicultural Asian immigrants, covering topics such as memory, identity, separation, and time. 

Izzy Shinn 

Izzy has been busy finishing prints while simultaneously fleshing out the concepts behind their work. Izzy said that throughout the residency, they often found themself occupied with ideating, planning, and potential, “I've been keeping to what I know concerning printing technique and processes, but utilizing that knowledge to the best of my ability, especially amongst such amazing resources and community found at Highpoint." 

Izzy Shinn (they/he/she) is a butch Twin Cities-based printmaker and comic artist specializing in intaglio etching and ink illustration, having earned their BFA from the University of Minnesota. With a focus on butchness, lesbian life, and history, their work is tied intimately with themself and their own experiences, showcased through characters and archetypes, exploring the sexual and social stigmatization of women, the body, and the queer subject.

Gidinatiy Hartman
Gidinatiy will be presenting multi-block color relief prints that depict words from Deg Xinag (their Native language), including images from an ongoing series of “bug prints”. In another work, Gidinatiy recreates the visual effect of Athabascan beadwork by meticulously carving hundreds upon hundreds of individual dots onto a linoleum block. The effect is incredible, and it needs to be seen firsthand.

Gidinatiy Hartman (they/them) has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Their artwork creates visual representations of Deg Xinag and other Native languages. It is centered around a desire to reclaim their family’s Athabascan language, which was taken from them due to colonization. United by a sense of whimsy and wordplay, their art seeks to make it easier for people to learn Deg Xinag and other Native languages. They aspire to have multiple modes of representation, including visual art, making language revitalization more accessible to people.

About the Jerome Early Career Printmakers Residency – Highpoint’s Jerome Residency was established in 2003 with generous funding from the Jerome Foundation. The program serves early-career Minnesota printmakers who show significant potential yet have not received a commensurate amount of professional accomplishment or recognition in the field. Jerome artists are selected based on their dedication, interest, and potential in printmaking, as well as the artistic merit of their work.

Highpoint would like to thank this year’s panelists Tamara Aupumaut and Heidi Goldberg.

Tamara Aupaumut is a multidisciplinary artist and independent curator living on Mni Sota Makoce, also known as Minneapolis. She works in a variety of media, including printmaking.

Heidi Goldberg earned her BA from Hamline University and MFA in printmaking and works on paper at The University of Michigan. She taught studio art at Concordia from 1995-2022. Her works have been exhibited in local, regional, national, and international juried exhibitions. She lives and works in the sand hills near the National Sheyenne Grasslands in North Dakota. 

Special thanks to guest critics Suyao Tian, Regan Golden McNerney, Tamara Aupaumat, and Hedi Goldberg for visiting with the artist and providing feedback at various intervals during the residency.

The Jerome Early Career Residency is in its 21st year of programming and is funded with a generous grant from the Jerome Foundation. The program is open to early-career Minnesota printmakers — defined here as artists who show significant potential yet have not received a commensurate amount of professional accomplishment or recognition, regardless of age or recognition in other fields. You can find details about the program, application process, and creative benefits on our website.

About the Jerome Foundation –  Created by artist and philanthropist Jerome Hill (1905-1972), The Jerome Foundation seeks to contribute to a dynamic and evolving culture by supporting the creation, development, and production of new works by emerging artists. Based in St. Paul, MN, the Foundation makes grants to not-for-profit arts organizations and artists in Minnesota and New York City.

Exhibition on view: March 8 - April 26, 2024

Opening Reception: Friday, March 8; 6:30 - 9pm

public conversation moderated by special guest Casey Riley: Thursday, April 4; 7 - 8pm

The 2023 McKnight Printmaking Fellowship concludes with the fellowship exhibition at Highpoint. Beginning on March 8, Carolyn and Natasha will welcome visitors into the galleries to view the fruits of their fellowship year. This is an annual highlight on Highpoint’s exhibition calendar, appointment viewing if you will.

Between the outset of the fellowship in and now, a lot has happened beyond simply time spent in the studio. Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, Highpoint brought the poet, artist, and critic John Yau to Minnesota for indivdual studio visits with Carolyn and Natasha. Then in late January, author and art educator Sarah Urist Green braved the Minnesota deep freeze to do the same. Both of these special guests were identified earlier in the fellowship by Carolyn and Natasha as two people that they would like to meet and converse with. 

In September, Carolyn and Natasha were honored alongside all the other 2023 McKnight Artist and Culture Bearer Fellows during a special celebration at McKnight Foundation HQ. in the past 12 months, they have also had the opportunity to attend numerous visits to local museums and guided tours of special exhibitions including In Our Hands at Mia and Paul Chan: Breathers at the Walker Art Center.

Here’s what the fellows have been working on:

Using the large intaglio press in the co-op, Carolyn has been making some massive monotypes. She has also been taking advantage of the screenprinting setup. Carolyn said she was enormously inspired by John Yau’s visit which gave her new ideas and encouragement. She is putting the finishing touches on about a dozen works which will be in the exhibition. The series includes some self portraits and images of her family and pets. Recently Carolyn also spent two months as artist in residence at the Northeast Sculpture Gallery Factory, this is where her visit with Sarah Urist Green took place. At the Northeast Sculpture Gallery Factory she had the room needed to spread out to complete her large work on paper inspired by a trip to the Boundary Waters. 

She’s been working mostly within screenprinting and monotype, but Natasha is awfully  excited to be incorporating her newly acquired papermaking skills into her practice. In the exhibition, she will showcase several distinct series of work that have been in development. Natasha offered this about her fellowship experience: “Over the fellowship year, I have been steeped in an exploration of what home means and where it resides, pulling from my personal experience of eviction. Inspired by the lottery tickets my mom regularly bought and the impromptu fridge collages my Dad forms from real estate ads and images of domestic life, I am seeking to develop a visual lexicon and material sensibility, through handmade paper and printmaking, that allows me to hold onto something while letting go of the things that cannot be changed.” Natasha is also excited to experience a fully-funded artist residency following the fellowship. This benefit is provided to recent fellows by the McKnight Foundation through a partnership with the Artist Communities Alliance. 

Don’t forget to join us for a special event on Thursday, April 4 featuring special guest Casey Riley. Casey will be moderating a conversation between Carolyn and Natasha on their practice, their work, and any other related topics that organically arise. The audience will also have the opportunity to ask questions of the artists and Casey during the conversation. Seating is limited but this event is free, free, free.

Casey RIley oversees Mia’s department of Global Contemporary Art and the research, exhibition, and publication of the museum’s renowned collection of art after 1970. Her curatorial practices are rooted in collaboration and informed by the principles of inclusion and equity. Recent projects at Mia include “Objectivity: Metaphorical and Material Lives of Photographs,” “Dayanita Singh: Pothi Khana,” “Hindsight: American Documentary Photography 1930-1950,” “Vision 2020: Jess Dugan,” “Just Kids,” and “Strong Women, Full of Love: The Photography of Meadow Muska.” In partnership with Mia colleagues and a curatorial council of fourteen artists, scholars, and knowledge sharers, she is co-organizing a survey of works by First Nations, Metis, Inuit, and Native American photographic artists, opening at Mia in October 2023.

Highpoint would like to once again thank Andrea Carlson (visual artist) and Alexis Lowry (Curator at Dia Art Foundation, New York) for providing their expert insight in reviewing the applications for the 2023 fellowship. We’d also like to thank John Yau (poet, critic, artist) and Sarah Urist Green (curator and art educator) for taking time out of their busy schedules to travel to Minnesota for meetings with Carolyn and Natasha

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.

Brandywine Workshop and Archives
Presented at Highpoint Center for Printmaking

Flowing Abstraction: Contemporary African Diaspora Printmaking

Highpoint Center for Printmaking is pleased to announce our forthcoming exhibition, Flowing Abstraction, works created by Brandywine Workshop and Archives, opening January 26, 7 - 9 pm. Flowing Abstraction: Contemporary African Diaspora Printmaking highlights the creative process and the flow of artistic ideas and knowledge as revealed in 24 abstract fine-art prints by eight artists of varied African, Caribbean, and African-American heritages and nationalities.

And join us Saturday, January 27, from 12 -1 pm, as Highpoint hosts a free public curator conversation with Michele Parchment, Brandywine Executive Director, and Taylor Jasper, Walker Art Center Assistant Curator of Visual Arts. 

Flowing Abstraction will be on display at Highpoint Center for Printmaking from January 26 - March 2, 2024. Exhibiting Artists: El Anatsui, Enise Carr, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Sam Gilliam, Tim McFarlane, Julie Mehretu, Kebedech Tekleab, Tyler Yvette Wilson

Public Opening Reception: January 26, 7-9 pm
Exhibition Dates: January 26 - March 2, 2024
Curator Conversation: January 27, 12 - 1 pm

“Flow is a state of being associated with creativity and enhanced performance,” explains Klare Scarborough, Ph.D., a curator, educator, author, and arts administrator who contributed to the exhibition catalog’s essay. “Flow enters the creative process in moments when action and awareness merge, when artists become completely absorbed in their tasks, and their sense of time slips away. Working within a turbulent political and social climate, including a global pandemic, these artists actively sought opportunities to expand their artistic practices through experimentation, learning, and collaboration.”

Abstraction is currently understood to involve the translation of lived experience through embodied practices. The artists featured in Flowing Abstraction, while sharing African Diasporic heritage, represent a range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and they are diverse in their artistic interests and goals. Their influences include music, dance, literature, philosophy, architecture, history, politics, current events, social injustices, personal stories, ancestral heritage, and the environment. They work primarily in artistic mediums other than printmaking, such as painting, sculpture, collage, photography, performance, and installation. While their artworks presented in Flowing Abstraction are considered non-representational, they emerge as passionate responses to their phenomenological experiences of the world.

Curator: Flowing Abstraction: Contemporary African Diaspora Printmaking was organized by Brandywine Workshop and Archives with assistance from Klare Scarborough, PhD. 

About Brandywine Workshop and Archives

Founded in 1972, Brandywine Workshop andArchives (BWA) is a diversity-driven, nonprofit cultural institution that produces and shares art to connect, inspire, and build bridges among global communities. At BWA, creative expression is fostered through collaboration and processes that employ conventional as well as emerging technologies. BWA offers a Visiting Artist-in-Residence Program, changing exhibitions in The Printed Image Gallery and Glass Gallery, traveling exhibitions, and publishes exhibition catalogs and a Teacher Guide for Cross-Curricular and Cross-Cultural Learning.

Highpoint's 43rd Co-op Exhibition

On View December 1, 2023 - January 6, 2024

Opening reception December 1, from 6:30–9:00 pm

Celebrate and support local printmakers and get some incredible works and gifts for the holiday season! Highpoint Center for Printmaking is pleased to announce the opening of Prints on Ice, an exhibition featuring prints made by members of Highpoint’s artist cooperative. This is our 43rd semi-annual co-op member exhibition. As usual, we offer a 20% discount on all co-op member artwork during this opening weekend, December 1st and 2nd. 

Prints on Ice features 79 new printmaking works made by 38 of Highpoint’s artist cooperative members. The exhibition incorporates a variety of techniques and styles, including relief prints, lithographs, screenprints, monotypes, books, and more! Work will be available for purchase throughout the exhibition. Many participating artists will be present for the opening reception, so it is a great chance to meet the people doing the work! 

Visitors can expect to see a little bit of everything from maximal images of abstraction such as the large colorful, and hyper-detailed screenprint Desert Fire by Horacio Devoto and the hive of activity that is Lynnette Black’s Rhapsody. Also included are painstakingly rendered figurative prints like to be with you (holding hands) by Sophie Rogers and quietly contemplative pho-based prints like Catkin Pollen by John Pearson. If you’re looking for a gift or artwork, you’re sure to find something to meet the taste of every art lover.

Artists include Jon Mahnke, Anda Tanaka, Belle Hulne, Benjamin Capp, Beth Dorsey, Brian Wagner, Brian Kantor, Bridget Lips, Carl Nanoff, Carley Schmidt, Cathy Ryan, Cathy Spengler, Cedar Heffelfinger, Kurt Seaberg, Edson Rosas, Eileen Rieman-Schaut, Sally Gordon, Gabi Estrada, Grace Sippy, Heather Delisle, Horacio Devoto, Isabel Arevalo, James Boyd Brent, Jasper Duberry, Jeremy Lundquist, John Pearson, John Schulz, Josh Bindewald, Kristin Bickal, Lynnette K Black, Megan Wetzel, Melissa McElin, Melissa Sisk, Monique Kantor, Nancy Ariza, Nancy Bolan, Pamela Carberry, Sophie Rogers, Taylor Schumann, Tyler Green, Cathy Spengler, and Whitney Terrill.

Highpoint Center for Printmaking is pleased to present On Looking, a selection of work by artist Fidencio Fifield-Perez. Including printmaking, painting, and installation, On Looking highlights the ambiguity of boundaries in artistic medium and perception and the experience of immigration, revealing that solace can be found in the in-between.

Fifield-Perez calls attention to this precarity by creating personal barriers within his work, from photo-realistically painted plants covering his address on immigration documents in his series dacaments to a moiré effect obscuring the text beneath intricate weavings in To Live Not Just Survive or to figures and landscapes masking the details of maps in his installation Surge. 

On Looking invites the viewer to delve deeper into different levels of observation, wander between them, and celebrate the undefined. We invite the community to join us for a public opening reception on Friday, September 15th, 2023, from 7 - 9 PM. The artwork will be on display through November 18th, 2023.

Cutting & Pruning by Fidencio Fifield-Perez

About the Artist: Fidencio Fifield-Perez was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, but raised in the U.S. after his family migrated. His current work examines borders, edges, and the people who must traverse them. In his work, Fifield-Perez’s interdisciplinary practice centers on the materiality of paper ephemera, everyday self-documents discarded after fulfilling their purpose. For Fifield-Perez, printmaking, collage, and painting are ways to visualize and connect mental landscapes of the past and present.

Fidencio Fifield-Perez received his BFA from Memphis College of Art and an MA & MFA from The University of Iowa. He has exhibited at multiple institutions, including The Cleveland Museum of Art, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, and the International Print Center New York. He has completed artist residencies at The Studios at MASS MoCA, Ox-Bow, ACRE, Crosstown Arts, and the Galveston Artist Residency, among others. He has been awarded The Eliza Moore Fellowship at Oak Spring Garden Foundation. He is currently one of the inaugural Dr. Harold R. Adams Artist-in-Residence Fellows at The University of Minnesota.

Highpoint’s 42nd Semi-Annual Artist Cooperative Exhibition

On View: August 4 - September 9, 2023

Opening reception: Friday, August 4 from 6:30- 9 PM

Toast to Highpoint’s outgoing Co-Founder and Master Printer Cole Rogers @ 7:30

MEGA BLOWOUT PRINT SALE:

Friday, August 4: 6:30-9pm and Saturday, August 5; 12-4pm

There will be TONS of extra co-op member work available to purchase during the exhbition. This is an opportunity for you to get your hands on some fabulous original artwork at a great price while supporting the artists and helping them make space in their studios! Don’t miss this sale! As usual, all co-op member work on the walls and in the gallery sales racks will be 20% off.

The 21st installment of our Hot off the Press will feature 84 examples of printwork made by 41 members of Highpoint’s artist cooperative. The exhibition prints incorporate all manner of techniques and styles, including relief prints, lithographs, screenprints, monotypes, and more! Most work will be available for purchase throughout the exhibition. Many of the participating artists will be present for the opening reception, so it is a great chance to meet the people making the work!

Artists and artwork involved in the project:

The Highpoint Cooperative Printshop currently hosts 70+ individual makers, from self-taught artists to life-long makers, educators, Jerome Residents, McKnight Fellows, scholarship recipients, Highpoint interns, and more! It is a vibrant and active community brought together by the love of printmaking processes. The cooperative printshop first opened in 2001, and a few of the members in this exhibition have been printing and taking classes at Highpoint since the very beginning.

Participating Artists

Exhibition opening reception: friday, June 9; 6:30-9pm

Artist remarks at 7pm

Exhibition on view through July 22

Please join us at Highpoint for the culminating exhibition of the 2022- 2023 Jerome Early Career Printmakers. Through the generous support of the Jerome Foundation, resident artists Brandon Chambers, Brian Wagner, and Nicole Soley have been working industriously toward this exhibition since their residency began in September of 2022.

The nine-month residency provided the artists with access to the Highpoint cooperative printshop, technical support, and professional opportunities to create, learn, and show new work within a supportive studio environment. The exhibition includes images created using foundational printmaking techniques such as lithography and woodcut but also features less conventional print work like stop motion animation and transfer monotypes made with alcohol-based ink. The common thread binding the work of these three artists is the significance of thought informing it. The exhibition is conceptually charged; the founding thoughts, ideas, and feelings are poetically expressed through figures, text, scenes, and material.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS AND WORK:

Brian Wagner (they/them) was educated at the University of Minnesota Moorhead and shortly thereafter completed the professional printer program at the Tamarind Institute of Fine Art Lithography in Albuquerque. They draw upon their experience of growing up as a queer person in rural America and how that has been formative to their sexuality, identity, and transness as a non-binary individual.

I have spent this residency rendering densely-layered lithographs that explore the tenderness, loneliness, acceptance, and gentle anger of queerness and healing. These prints and writings consider the physical and emotional spaces of love, hurt, trauma, and remembrance of relationships in the forms of drawn landscapes and queer symbolism of the day-to-day life of a queer person. I view many of the scenes I draw as places of transition; shifting and ever-changing. Something that is cohesive with my own queerness. I spent most of this residency fighting the healing that was needed of me –– I think it’s easy for queer people to get used to resilience and ignore the trauma that we face every day, even from our own community and partners. In the laborious nature of lithography, I think it was only natural to have a bit of a breakdown and face the physical and emotional trauma that was being echoed and start to heal and it’s my hope that these spaces can offer solace to someone who has faced the same. – Brian Wagner

Nicole Soley (she/her) is an area artist and educator who studied at Minnesota State University Mankato. Using a novel approach along with a touch of sardonicism, Nicole’s traditional and sculptural prints tell stories that critique the culture of ‘American Dissonance’ we are collectively living in. She synthesizes lived experience and research to comment on education, gun culture, individual freedoms, and the harrowing upholding of the patriarchy.

​​Contemporary strife has moved me to create in order to process, distribute, and hopefully motivate political organizations to cause change. My personal experiences this year heavily influenced the trajectory of this work in newer experimental directions. I think that’s where the best art lives, though: in the fluidity and uncertainty of the human experience, propagating and releasing new truths to orbit an ever-moving molten core. Thank god for woodcut printmaking: carving was possibly the only gravity I felt while I was both lost and searching, grasping and letting go, disillusioned and fully standing in my own truth. – Nicole Soley

Brandon Chambers (he/him) completed his MFA at the University of Minnesota in 2021. A multidisciplinary artist, Brandon’s current research is into virtual reality as both a philosophical concept and a creative tool. His recent works employ geometry and grids to illustrate systems and visually establish a sense of clarity about the world. He states, “I am interested in merging nostalgia for the distant past with fantasies of the distant future as a way of conceptualizing the present.”

Semantic satiation is a phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to lose meaning for the listener. It becomes a meaningless sound. I wonder at the routines and archetypes we are inundated with throughout our lives. Was there an idea so important that it was repeated and repeated and repeated until it was lost?” His response as an artist is seen in the lithographs, monotypes, and drawings that contemplate this question. – Brandon Chambers

Highpoint would like to thank our panelists Jovan Speller and Jeremy Lundquist for their intensive review and evaluation of the submitted applications as well as the Jerome Foundation for their continued support of this important program. As well as Ruthann Godollei and Nancy Julia Hicks for visiting with the residents to conduct in-progress critiques.

About the panelists: 

Jovan C. Speller is a Minnesota-based artist originally from Los Angeles.  Her work interprets historic narratives through contemporary discourse. Her research-based practice is centered around elevating, complicating and inventing stories that explore ancestry, identity, and spatial memory. Speller is a recipient of a 2018 McKnight Visual Artist Fellowship and a 2016 Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship. She completed a residency at Second Shift Studio Space in St. Paul, and was awarded the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Minnesota Art Prize in 2021. She holds a BFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago, and studied art at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Speller's work has been acquired by national and international private collections and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Jeremy Lundquist was born in California, grew up in the Chicago area, and currently lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. He works in print, drawing, photography, video, installation, and cut and collaged paper. He has been an artist-in-residence at Ox-Bow, Harold Arts, Spudnik Press, Kala Art Institute and the Vermont Studio Center. He has been awarded the Grant Wood, Jerome and McKnight Fellowships. His work has been exhibited at Highpoint Center for Printmaking, the Chicago Cultural Center, Gallery 400 at the University of Illinois – Chicago, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, and additional venues nationally and internationally. He has taught at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Iowa, and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Currently he teaches at the Perpich Center for Arts Education, an arts high school run by the state of Minnesota.

ACCESS/PRINT & LOOK/SEE Student Exhibition
On display May 19th - June 3rd, 2023
Opening Friday, May 19th, 5:30 - 8 PM

*Also join us for the closing reception 
and Free Ink Day on June 3rd, 12 - 4 PM

Join us for the annual student exhibition opening on May 19th, 5:30 - 8 pm. The show will include artwork from the ACCESS/PRINT teen mentorship program, as well as LOOK/SEE, a showcase of youth artwork from Franklin Middle School and works from the Creative Clean Water Stewardship project, generously supported by a Hennepin County Green Partners Environmental Education Grant. Exhibitions are always free and open to all – come support the students and learn about these unique programs! 

There will also be live screenprinting! Local artists will assist with the printing process using designs made by the ACCESS/PRINT students.

Interested in helping out? We are looking for volunteers to help with the Student Exhibition opening. See details and sign up here.

“The ACCESS/PRINT class was full of students who quickly fell in love with printmaking and were very eager to experiment with different concepts, techniques, and media.” says the ACCESS/PRINT coordinator and teacher, Gabi Estrada. “These students were all brilliant young artists who were incredibly thoughtful in the conception of their projects and creative with the freedom they had to explore different print techniques. Everyone in this class was so inspiring and it was an immense pleasure getting to know them and watching their ideas come to fruition!”

ACCESS/PRINT is a teen mentorship program that supports creative youth with over 70 hours of studio time, printmaking tutorials, technical assistance, and support as they work to create a body of work. The 2022/2023 ACCESS/PRINT exhibition includes work by Tay Wright, Anastasia Kol-Balfour, Lee Greve, Aiyana Beaulieu, Mia Lambert, Sterling Rouleau, CJ Alexander, Catrielle Barnett, Zara Ridenour, and Emma Zauhar

Creative Clean Water Stewards is a year-long education program designed to teach students about clean water initiatives, rain gardens, and pollinators, and allow them to create artwork around sustainability. The exhibition includes poems and work by Ella Baker Global Studies and Humanities Magnet School, Whittier International School, and Burroughs Community School. Funded by Hennepin County Green Partners.

STUDENT ARTWORK HIGHLIGHTS:

South High School senior Mia Lambert created a final project on the themes of Asian American identity and religious iconography. Her series included a veil made up of screen-printed fabric scraps sewn together, a multi-layer screenprint created with translucent inks on mylar to mimic the appearance of a stained-glass window and relief-printed tree trunk slices. 

After learning about the use of printmaking in social movements through Access/Print, Southwest High School sophomore Anastasia Balfour was inspired to produce some of her own protest art. Through her print, she aims to disrupt racist stereotypes that are attributed to Black girls and women by drawing on her own experiences as a Black person, living in the predominantly white neighborhood of Linden Hills. 

Perpich senior Lee Greve chose to depict a series of extinct animals who were victims of the Holocene Extinction. Greve intentionally used a monotype technique to present these animals, in order to reflect the impermanence of animal species. 

Inspired by the prevalence of the Wild West in their childhood and their current interest in 70s glam rock, Shakopee High School junior Tay Wright created a series of “Rhinestone Cowboy” portraits. Wright chose to pair the more precise aesthetic achievable through screenprinting with more varied techniques like relief hand printing and blotted line monoprinting. 

Aiyana Beaulieu, who is also a senior at Perpich, wanted to draw from their Anishinaabe culture and depict the interconnectedness of humanity and nature. Through drypoint intaglio and monotype techniques, Beaulieu depicts a portrait of an Inuit woman surrounded by animals native to Turtle Island, rock formations, and constellations. 

Highpoint Presents: Jungle Press Editions

A partnership celebrating the breadth of work, techniques, and styles by 

fifteen esteemed artists with Jungle Press Editions

Closing Event:

Join us on Saturday, May 6th at 12 PM in the Highpoint Galleries for the exhibition closing and a public walkthrough with Director and Master Printer, Andrew Mockler. Andrew will share behind-the-scenes stories about the printing processes, details about works in the show, and will lead guests through the exhibition on display at Highpoint.

The event is FREE to the public, but we ask that you RSVP here

Highpoint is thrilled to present a selection of works published by Jungle Press Editions of Brooklyn, NY. The exhibition features an array of vibrant and experimental prints by fifteen artists, including Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Ellen Berkenblit, Jennifer Mack-Watkins, Nicole Eisenman, Sam Messer, and others. Join us for a public opening reception on Friday, March 31st, 7 - 9 PM. Artwork will be on display through May 6th, 2023.

The artists have collaborated throughout Jungle Press’ history with Director and Master Printer, Andrew Mockler, to create new work utilizing their themes and mark making styles, transformed into print medium. This exhibition showcases the breadth of work created at Jungle Press Editions and the diverse and bold styles of printmaking by the artists.

“A major part of Highpoint’s founding mission is to increase the appreciation and understanding of the printmaking arts and to expand access to the many contemporary voices and perspectives it serves. Over the years, Highpoint has partnered with international printmaking studios from Japan, Cuba, Pakistan, South Africa, Northern Ireland, the Arctic Circle, among others to bring exhibitions to Highpoint’s galleries to share with Minnesota audiences. Highpoint has also been proud to feature quite a few printshops from Canada, Mexico, and the US whose work helps connect us with current artwork coming out of communities closer to home. These partnerships introduce new artists to Minnesota, elevate the artists’ work and help advance their perspectives - which is foundational to the notion of prints as vehicles for communicating images and ideas. This spring, we are thrilled to recognize the work being created at Jungle Press, and HP looks forward to presenting this exciting art in our galleries.”  – Highpoint Artistic Director and Master Printer, Cole Rogers

Exhibition Highlights:

In 2022, Jungle Press worked with printmaker Jennifer Mack-Watkins to create two new lithographs continuing her exploration of themes of racial identity and history, injustice, and societal conformity related to gender roles. Space Boy and Space Girl will be featured in the exhibition alongside her earlier works with Jungle Press. 

Painter Sam Messer's work from a 2020 collaboration with Jungle Press will also be included. These playful portraits of Olympia typewriters, an ongoing subject for Messer, using multiple techniques and handmade additions in these variable editioned works.

Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones’s paintings emerge from a perspective of what the artist describes as ‘cultural addition, combination and collaboration’. Born and educated in the UK and now living and working in the USA, his practice is inspired by the ancient history of West Africa and its attendant mythology, and by his Yoruba heritage.

Artists Include:
Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Ellen Berkenblit, Elizabeth Cooper, Nicole Eisenman, Jane Fine, Jacqueline Humphries, Robert Kushner, Jennifer Mack-Watkins, Michael Mazur, Sam Messer, Andrew Mockler, Jill Moser, Katia Santibañez, Joan Snyder, Brian Wood

Andrew Mockler, Jungle Press Master Printer, visits Highpoint Center for Printmaking
Highpoint is dedicated to the mission of making printmaking accessible, creating educational opportunities, and continuing the practice of traditional printmaking techniques. Along with the exhibition, Highpoint has invited Jungle Press’ Master Printer, Andrew Mockler, to Minneapolis for the opening reception, and for a special members' event and printshop talk discussion between Cole Rogers, Highpoint Master Printer, and Andrew Mockler. An invitation will be sent to members by email and the recording of the discussion may be made available online. 

About Jungle Press Editions

Jungle Press Editions, founded in 1995, is a publisher of fine art prints and multiples by internationally renowned contemporary artists. Collaborating with master printer Andrew Mockler in his Gowanus, Brooklyn workshop, each artist is encouraged to develop an experimental approach. Working together in lithography, etching, monoprint, and relief printing, the printer and artist bring the artist's work out of the studio into the realm of printmaking.

Highpoint’s 41st Semi-Annual Co-op Exhibition

On View: December 9th - January 7th, 2023

Opening reception: Friday, December 9th from 6:30- 9 PM

Highpoint Center for Printmaking is pleased to announce the opening of Prints on Ice, an exhibition featuring prints made by members of Highpoint’s artist cooperative. This is our 41st semi-annual, co-op member exhibition and we are ready to celebrate! As usual, we are offering a 20% discount on all co-op member artwork during this opening event (Dec 9th, 6:30 - 9pm) and during our gallery hours on Saturday (Dec 10th, 12 - 4pm). 

Prints on Ice features 72 prints made by 34 members from Highpoint’s artist cooperative. The exhibition prints incorporate all manner of techniques and styles, including relief prints, lithographs, screenprints, monotypes, and more! Most work will be available for purchase throughout the exhibition. Many of the participating artists will be present for the opening reception, so it is a great chance to meet the people making the work!

Artists and artwork involved in the project:

The Highpoint Cooperative Printshop currently hosts 70+ individual makers, from self-taught artists to life-long makers, educators, Jerome Residents, McKnight Fellows, scholarship recipients, Highpoint interns, and more! It is a vibrant and active community brought together by the love of printmaking processes. The cooperative printshop first opened in 2001, and a few of the members in this exhibition have been printing and taking classes at Highpoint since the very beginning.

Artists include: Megan Bakke, Jeffrey Berger, Kristin Bickal, Josh Bindewald, Lynnette Black, Lynn Bollman, Ben Capp, Pamela Carberry, Beth Dorsey, Jasper Duberry, Victoria Eidelsztein, Gabi Estrada, Anne Feicht, Sally Gordon, Belle Hulne, Nancy Johnson, Brian Kantor, Monique Kantor, Therese Krupp, Mei Lam So, Erin Leon, Carl Nanoff, John Pearson, John Schulz, Kurt Seaberg, Lila Shull, Melissa Sisk, Pam Sullivan, Anda Tanaka, Megan Wetzel, Kara Yeomans, Jeremy Lundquist, Jon Mahnke, and Horacio Devoto. 

Image preview (above) by Belle Hulne

A Selection of the Featured Artwork:

Highpoint’s 40th Semi-Annual Co-op Exhibition

On View: July 22nd – September 16th, 2022

Opening reception: Friday, July 22nd, 6:30- 9 PM

Featuring: Refreshments, light snacks, and live music from Joe Haus (President of the Minnesota Guitar Society), plus 20% off discount on all artist cooperative member prints July 22nd and 23rd. 

Artists Include: 
Anda Tanaka, Belle Hulne, Beth Dorsey, Carl Nanoff, Cathy Spengler, Eileen Rieman-Schaut, Erik Farseth, Erin Leon, Gabi Estrada, Grace Sippy, Heather Delisle, James Boyd Brent, Jeremy Lundquist, John Pearson, John Schulz, Josh Bindewald, Kristin Bickal, Kurt Seaberg, Lauren Alfaro Nuñez, Lila Shull, Louise Fisher, Lynn Bollman, Lynnette Black, Megan Bakke, Melanie Eng, Melissa Sisk, Monique Kantor, Nancy Bolan, Natalie Wynings, Nicole Soley, Pam Carberry, Sally Gordon, Therese Krupp, Tyler Green, and Zoe Rogers. 

Highpoint Center for Printmaking is pleased to announce the opening of Hot Off The Press, an exhibition featuring 84 individual prints made by members of Highpoint’s artist cooperative. This is our 40th semi-annual, co-op members exhibition and we are ready to celebrate!

As usual, we are offering a 20% discount on all co-op member artwork during this opening event (July 22nd, 6:30 - 9pm) and during our gallery hours on Saturday (July 23rd, 12 - 4pm). 

Hot Off the Press features recent work made by 35 members from Highpoint’s artist cooperative. The exhibition prints incorporate a wide variety of techniques and styles, including large-scale woodcuts, lithographs, screenprints, monotypes, and more! Most work will be available for purchase throughout the exhibition. Many of the 35 participating artists will be present for the opening reception, so it is a great chance to meet the people making the work!

Scroll onward to see a small selection of the featured prints, and for additional information

Artists and artwork involved in the exhibition:
The Highpoint Cooperative Printshop currently hosts 60+ individual makers, from self-taught artists to life-long makers, educators, Jerome Residents, McKnight Fellows, scholarship recipients, Education and Studio Interns, and more! It is a vibrant and active community brought together for the love of printmaking processes. The cooperative printshop first opened in 2001, and a few of the members in this exhibition have been printing and taking classes at Highpoint since the very beginning!

Artist Highlight:
Meet Carl Nanoff. For the exhibition, Carl displays new works that represent some of the ideas he learned while studying architecture and art back in college, and the structure and forms he has worked with over the last 40 years as a draftsman and designer. As Carl neared the age of retirement, he returned to printmaking and joined Highpoint to develop ideas and printmaking techniques. 

“Entropy is the first work of a series of prints titled Architectonic. The origins of Entropy began as a digital drawing. It was created as a large-scale print to both challenges myself and convey a combination of form and structure with artistically pleasing shapes – it represents some of my own observations related to aging. This work combines the left brain discipline that was required for work and the right brain chaos of my art.”

Entropy image also used on the Hot Off the Press postcard graphic.

Artist Highlight:
Meet Louise Fisher. Louise is a practicing artist and educator based in Minnesota, specializing in printmaking, photography, and installation. Within the printmaking umbrella, Louise creates relief, silkscreen, post-digital techniques (laser-cutting, digital printing), and also risograph and lithography. Louise has been practicing printmaking for 10 years and has been a co-op member of the Highpoint co-op since February 2021. Louise is currently an art instructor at the Normandale Community College, and also an active member of the Mid-America Print Council and Southern Graphic Council International (executive board 2019-2022). 

Louise’s work investigates the built environment and architectural spaces, how natural and artificial light affects circadian rhythms and urban versus rural landscapes. “While day allows for productivity, night affords us contemplation, privacy, silence, intimacy, and most importantly – rest. Commonly overlooked, light pollution has drastically altered ecosystems, our biological rhythms, and our collective sense of wonder. For the Hot Off the Press Exhibition, I’ve been experimenting more with size (scale), materials, and process. I think the end result is a body of print work that’s a little untraditional. The smaller works will also be affordable and easy to fit in any space, and I hope a few of them will find a new home!”

About special guest musician Joe Haus: Like many of his generation, Joe Haus discovered the guitar while watching the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, February 9, 1964, when the Beatles performed. He started guitar lessons at Traficanti Music in the summer of 1967 and used his first paycheck from the MN State Fair to buy a good electric guitar. Discovering that the members of the band Chicago met in music school, he headed to college to learn music and take up the classical guitar. He studied with James McGuire. Since then he has played at weddings, art galleries, and other events and venues as a soloist and with flutist Kay Miller. As a soloist, he performs an eclectic mix of styles and genres. He has been a member of the Minnesota Guitar Society for many years and is currently the president of the board of directors.

Ice Cream refreshments available by Leprechaun’s Dreamcycle

Exhibition ON VIEW: JANUARY 14 - FEBRUARY 12, 2021

Since February 2021, McKnight Printmaking Fellows Josh Winkler and Gaylord Schanilec have been busily translating ideas into prints for this exhibition. Despite never having met prior to this fellowship, their work is remarkably congruous. Each artist is an admirer and advocate of the natural world with a particular appreciation for trees. Not only do trees inform some of the content in their work, historically both artists have used wood as their printing matrix of choice; woodcut for Josh and wood engraving for Gaylord.

Originally from Indiana, Winkler is currently an Associate Professor of Printmaking at Minnesota State University Mankato. He primarily works from his home studio (SKS Press) in rural Nicollet County where he and his partner are rewilding a few acres. He offered the following thoughts about his artistic practice:

Direct experience and research feed the content and connections that are important to me as an artist. The environmental and cultural tragedies of the past must engage the high stakes of the present. Ecosystems are rapidly changing. So much has been lost, and there is much more to lose.

Recent research has taken me to the Grand Tetons and Crater Lake to study the plight of a dying keystone species, the whitebark pine. Camping in drought-stricken landscapes of northern California, I walked through burned forests and the dried-up arms of massive reservoirs. In Minnesota, I visited the last northern remnants of old-growth eastern white pine, and explored beaver habitat in southern Minnesota.  

These trips generated the experiences and imagery presented in this work. Half of the projects reflect on environmental conflict and destruction. The other half focus on positivity, and the potency of personal connection to the land. These parallel forces of hope and despair are emblematic of the present. We must look at Nature as a cultural force that can foster unity over division. 

* * *

In 1980, Gaylord Schanilec established his own press, Midnight Paper Sales. Since then he has published more than 25 books under his imprint, and has accepted numerous commissions including works for The Gregynog Press in Wales and the Grolier Club of New York. His work is represented in most major book arts collections in the United States and in the United Kingdom, and the archive of his working materials is held at the University of Minnesota.

Gaylord writes:

Consider the tree  turned upside down roots to the sky trunk to the ground.

Highpoint would like to thank the McKnight Foundation for their generous support of this program as well as this years panelists Tanekeya Word (artist, printmaker, scholar, and founder of Black Women of Print) and Lyndel King (Director Emeritus, Frederick R. Weisman Art Msuem). We would also like to express our gratitude to Dennis Michael Jon (Curator of Prints and Drawings at Mia) and Jerry Saltz (Author, Senior Art Critic at New York Magazine) for conducting studio visits with the fellows. Finally, thank you to Kim Todd for preparing questions and leading a discussion with the fellows during their exhibition.

Opening reception: Friday December 10, 6:30-9pm

20% off all exhibited co-op member work:

Friday December 10; 6:30-9pm and Saturday December 11; 12-4pm

Please join us for Highpoint’s 39th cooperative exhibition. Print’s on Ice will showcase 68 prints and printed objects recently made by 26 members of our artists cooperative printshop. These semi-annual exhibitions are a showcase the diversity of scale, technique, and content possible within printmaking.

Join us for the opening reception on Friday, December 10 from 6:30-9pm. Guests will enjoy 20% off the sale price of all co-op prints during the reception as well as during gallery hours Saturday, December 11.