Seattle Exhibit Gives March Posters a Worthy Display

CoCA photos by Shirene Soleiman 

Outside of its political implications, the Jan. 21 Women’s March offered an opportunity for artists to showcase their skills, in the form of spirited poster art, which is currently on display at Seattle’s Center on Contemporary Art (CoCA) through Feb. 25.

We-the-People-17x30-01-1-580x1024Prior to the march, the Amplifier Foundation put out a call for march poster art from women artists around the country. The organization received 5,000 submissions, and narrowed it down to eight official Women’s March poster designs.

Amplifier made the artwork available for download, which offered another opportunity … this time for printers … as 40,000 posters of the selected artwork were readied for the march in Washington, D.C.

Get Inspired: 10 of Our Favorite Customer Projects of 2015

Throughout the year, we’ve been awed and inspired by the innovative work our customers have created: from wall murals and tote bags to gallery exhibits and social statements. As the year draws to a close, we’ve been reflecting on some of our favorites, and thought we’d share them with you again. While there were many more excellent projects that we featured over the year, here are 10 of the blogs we thought our readers would enjoy revisiting as much as we did:

6 FInishedChurch’s Sleek New Student Center: Clear Lake Press transformed St. Thomas More Catholic Newman Center in the Minnesota State University Campus’ student center into a fun gathering spot. “It was one of those projects, when it started, I was extremely nervous about it,” says Eric Erickson, who used LexJet Print-N-Stick Fabric for the wall mural. “All of those nerves were laid to rest as we were installing it.

Lending a Hand to Contemporary Arts

CoCA featured image
The Center on Contemporary Art’s opening reception for “Change-Seed: Contemporary Art from Hong Kong and Beyond.” Photo credit: Annie Lukin

 

In late March, the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle, Wash., opened a ground-breaking exhibit called Change-Seed, featuring a group of Hong Kong-based contemporary artists. The show, which runs through May 15, 2015, is a mixture of edgy prints, mixed media and video installations.

Although Hong Kong is a financial mecca for well-known artists, the lesser-known artists have very limited visibility, says Nichole DeMent, CoCA’s executive director.

“When we put the call out, we said to the artists: Let us be your voice,” DeMent says. “Let us tell your story that you weren’t able to tell in China.”

So CoCA curated an eclectic mix of art projects and asked the artists to send in digital files. CoCA then turned to Rock’s Studio, a fine art digital print service provider in Seattle. Stephen Rock, a multifaceted artist himself, contacted LexJet about the project, in hopes to acquire media to print the photographic works on.

Rock used Photo Tex, a printable self-adhesive polyester fabric, for large-scale prints, such as Laurent Segretier‘s “Untitled 17,” a 72-by-95-inch collage of what looks to be a cliff under construction, lined with vulnerable bamboo scaffolding. “It’s a big, gritty, dirty-looking print,” Rock says. He increased the scale of the artist’s work, which had several cut-out pieces around the print’s edges, which Rock decided to honor, creating a funky, urban piece.

“Since we had no budget to frame and mount these pieces, I suggested Photo Tex,” Rock says. “We can go really big with it and put the print right on the wall.”

He used his HP Designjet Z3100 printer (now available in the Z3200 model) for the prints. “HP just works so great on this material,” he says.

Change_Seed_Install__NCD9225
Photography installations by artist Laurent Segretier: “Untitled 7,” “Untitled 15,” “Untitled 17” and “Untitled 24.”

 

Rock printed other photographic installations on Sunset Velvet Rag 315g. “As a printmaker, I just cringe at having to print big black areas on matte paper,” he says. “Any mishandling and those flat matte areas are prone to flaking. But with the Sunset Rag, it was like: Wow, these are deep and black and matte. They looked really sharp.”

Images in the prints included “Untitled 15,” objects wrapped with black trash bags and “Untitled 24,” an unidentifiable but intriguing image — guesses as to what it is range from rotting fabric to a dead insect.

“What are these guys trying to say, culture-wise,” Rock ponders. “Is it about consumption? There are so many layers and mystery. It’s very appropriate that they left it undefined.”

CoCA was thrilled to be a part of the dialog. “The artists appreciated the opportunity to have their work seen,” DeMent says. “It took them coming across the world to make that happen.”

Rock says he often does what he calls “benevolent printing” for projects like this, using as high-quality media as he has access to. “I don’t do cheap printing,” he says. “And thank you to LexJet, too, for helping. That’s what makes these shows work.”

Change_Seed_Install__NCD9200
Yael Bronner Rubin’s “Connecting to the Spirits,” printed on Sunset Velvet Rag 315g.