SHOW OF WORK BY SIX AREA ARTISTS SELECTED FOR FIRST “PROJECT ONE” OPENS AT SIGNAL 66 MAY 9

Washington, April 28--The spotlight will be turned on the work of six emerging artists from the Washington- Baltimore area in the first PROJECT ONEshow mount- ed by Hand Print Workshop International (HPWI) at Signal 66 in Washington. The show opens Friday, May 9, with a VIP reception for the artists at 6:30, followed by a general opening from 8:30-11:30, and runs through Sunday, May 25.

The six artists are— Christine Carr, Winston Harris, James Huckenpahler, Erick Jackson, Steven Lewis and S. Denise Tassin.

Project One is a new program organized by HPWI to provide opportunities for artists in the area who are just beginning to be recognized, or whose work deserves more recognition than it has received so far, to create innovative collaborative screenprint proj- ects at the Workshop in Alexandria, VA. HPWI is also dedicated to introducing the work of these artists to the greater community, through shows such as this one.

Five leading members of the Washington arts community served as curators for Project One this year. Annie Adjchavanich, executive director of the WPA/Corcoran; George Hemphill of Hemphill Fine Arts; Victoria Reis, co-director of Transformer Gallery; Renée Stout, artist, and independent curator Sarah Tanguy nominated 25 artists for consideration. The curators then met with HPWI director and master printer Dennis O’Neil to select the six artists for the premier of Project One.

In collaboration with O’Neil, each of the artists, who work in a variety of media, created concepts and a work plan for presenting their ideas in a print or print-related form. The artists worked closely with master printers at HPWI over the past year to bring this work to life. The current show includes the prints made at HPWI, as well as related work in other media by each of the artists.

Artist James Huckenpahler received formal training as a painter and has been creating work digitally for the past several years. ” The prospect of working at HPWI was appealing because it offered me the opportunity of working around some of the technical limitations of digital printing,” Huckenpahler said. “ The results of my collaboration with the workshop include the use of metallic and iridescent pigments, glass microbeads and semitransparent layers of wax used to achieve exceptional effects under natural light. Perhaps more significant for my artistic development were the conversations that arose while we were executing the works, which allowed me to revisit my own assumptions about the practice of creating multiples. Often at odds, Dennis and I debated “how unique can each print be?” or, ‘how much control should we exercise over the process and each print? “ and, “what accidents are allowed?”

HPWI is a non-profit organization whose mission is the pursuit of excellence in artistic exchange and collabora- tion in the visual arts through printmaking. The Workshop has initiated print projects with artists worldwide, for more than 25 years, working with Komar & Melamid, Leonid Tishkov, David Chung, Barton Lidice Benes, Vera Khlebnikova and William Christenberry, among many others.

Project One is supported by The Trellis Fund, The Abramson Family Foundation, The Max & Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, The Kiplinger Foundation, Christopher Reutershan, Steven Polo, The FRIENDS of HPWI and the Board of the Hand Print Workshop International.