SUNY New Paltz MFA student receives fellowship

Kaitlyn (Kate) Gesel, a Master of Fine Arts candidate in the SUNY New Paltz Printmaking program, is the recipient of a Southern Graphics Council International (SGCI) Graduate Fellowship. The SGCI is the largest print organization in North America, and its annual conference provides an opportunity to feature the work and philosophies of a program’s faculty and students. The award is highly competitive and is given to one person only each year.

“This is a highly regarded prize at one of the most important events in the field,” says Jill Parisi-Philips, SUNY New Paltz assistant professor in Printmaking. The SGCI conference brings together “thousands of artists, critics, curators, faculty members, and students from all over the country and internationally,” she explains.

The fellowship award includes membership in the SGCI, conference admission, a $500 travel stipend to attend this year’s conference in San Francisco, and a solo exhibition of Kate’s work at the 2015 SGCI Conference in Knoxville, TN.

“I have been experimenting with the idea of the print as a 3-dimensional, collaborative object,” Kate describes. “I have made prints into interchangeable pieces. The viewer is given the opportunity to create their own version of my artistic vision… These objects allow the viewer to directly connect and have a personal experience (with) my art.”

SGCI encourages print collecting and print connoisseurship, and shares safety, technical, and commercial information concerning print and printed media.