Printmaking faculty, alumni to be featured in top gallery exhibitions
Multiple print works by Jill Parisi, associate professor in the Department of Art at SUNY New Paltz, have been selected for exhibition this year at two prestigious venues: the International Print Center New York (IPCNY) and the Contemporary Art Gallery Bunkier Sztuki in Krakow, Poland.
Parisi’s work will be featured through July 31 as part of the IPCNY’s New Prints 2015/Summer exhibition. She is one of 39 artists chosen from more than 2,000 submissions for this 51st presentation of the IPCNY’s New Prints Program, which aims to showcase a wide variety of new trends and techniques in the field of contemporary printmaking.
“The IPCNY is a wonderful venue for prints, in a heavily trafficked art area,” Parisi said. “I was thrilled that they chose my pieces, and chose more than one, which is unusual. It’s one thing to get into the show, but to meet people and get great feedback is a special feeling.”
Parisi’s work will also be exhibited as part of the 2015 Main Exhibition of the International Print Triennial Society in Krakow (Stowarzyszenie Międzynarodowe Triennale Grafiki w Krakowie, or SMTG), a major European print event whose roots extend back to 1966.
Also featured at the SMTG will be prints by Kate Gesel ’15g (Printmaking), a recent graduate of the College’s printmaking MFA program who worked closely with Parisi and other Department of Art faculty and is enjoying some early professional successes in the industry.
“Working towards my MFA in printmaking, I found the expertise, skills and general knowledge of the art world of many of the art department faculty extremely valuable,” Gesel said. “They pushed me to experiment and risk failing in order to fully develop and create a strong body of cohesive work.”
Parisi said that bringing her students into contact with the professional world of print is an important aspect of her approach to teaching.
“I try to make students aware of opportunities to exhibit and encourage them to submit,” Parisi said. “I think that helps give them a sense of the richness of possibilities in this field – the range of concepts other artists are dealing with and how they are realizing them.”
This strategy is paying dividends for students and alumni of the program. SUNY New Paltz alumni to have prints featured at recent IPCNY events include Jon Irving ’13g (Printmaking), Elena Goren ’12g (Printmaking) and Clarissa Plank ’13g (Printmaking).
Those interested in printmaking at SUNY New Paltz can learn more about the program online.
More information about the IPCNY and the SMTG is available on their respective websites.