Local Impact, Student News

Printmaking Show Opens

Training Wheels, a Vermont Arts Exchange exhibition of print work by ten Advanced Printmaking students from Bennington College, will open at the Bennington Train Depot. The show will kick off with a reception on Wednesday, December 2 at 7:30 pm and runs through February 29, by appointment.

North Bennington Train Station

The students in this year’s Advanced Printmaking course at Bennington, taught by faculty member Thorsten Dennerline, have proposed and executed projects of their own design. Sarah Goone ’17, Aminata De Groot ’16, Sarah Madden ’16, Duncan Bullen ’16, Cian Costello ’16, Jasper McMahon ’16, Samuel Burhoe ’16, Justine Kefauver ’16, Lily Nichols Moore ’16, and Farah Mohammad ’16 will present these projects in a variety of media, including intaglio, woodcut relief, lithography, silkscreen, artists’ books, and art objects.

Working in a traditional studio class structure comprised of critiques, discussion, and group work periods, the students focused in a variety of printmaking techniques and materials. Farah Mohammad and Justine Kefauver are both using literature in their work to emphasize themes throughout various texts. Lily Moore and Aminata DeGroot use installation tactics to set their audiences in ideas of femininity and social order, while Sarah Madden tackles related ideas while pushing the boundaries of printmaking and quiltmaking. Samuel Burhoe and Sarah Goone have worked in the book form, binding together collections of print and text. Using block printing, Duncan Bullen experiments with systems to create images, and Cian Costello uses intaglio to document his design process, turning schematics into print. Jasper McMahon presents multimedia work questioning the relationship between imagery and music. Additionally, all the artists have collaborated on a small print sale for the exhibition’s opening.

Mounting final work as a group show in a public community venue both reinforces the community spirit and collaborative nature of printmaking, in which artists share a print shop, equipment, and often ideas and techniques. It also offers an important challenge to student artists to create, curate, and publicize their work to an audience beyond campus.

This year’s exhibition is the print department’s first use of the Train Depot, which has offered the students a new venue to consider developing and mounting their work.

Selected works are for sale and a price list is available. To schedule a visit to the gallery, please call the VAE at 802-442-5549.

For other exhibits, events, classes and workshops at the VAE, please call or visit vtartxchange.org.