This exhibit, which runs Feb. 1 through April 6, features a selection of limited edition fine art prints created at Tandem Press by Los Angeles-based sculptor and printmaker Alison Saar.
Saar’s sculptures, assemblages and prints meditate on a range of experiences related to the African diaspora as well as her personal encounters with racism, sexism and ageism. Referencing African, Caribbean and Latin American folk art and spirituality in her work, Saar often alludes to fabled narratives or rituals that help shape personal notions of history and identity.
A native of Los Angeles, Saar received her undergraduate degree from Scripps College and her master of fine arts from the Otis College of Art and Design. She grew up in an artistic environment with her mother, Betye Saar, an artist, and her father, Richard Saar, an illustrator and art conservator.
She has been selected for many residencies including the Studio Museum in Harlem and has received several distinguished honors including awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Her work can be found in numerous museum collections including the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Saar has been working with Tandem Press since 2014 and over the past several years she has primarily used woodcut printmaking techniques to create limited edition fine art prints in the Tandem Press studio. In addition to printing on paper, Saar often employs used fabrics, such as vintage handkerchiefs, old shop rags, and antique sugar sacks, as the support for her printed images. These found materials amplify the content and concept within Saar’s imagery and resist elements of the repetitive nature of the printmaking medium.
“Alison Saar: Printmaker” will present a survey view of the prints, both on paper and on fabric, that Saar created in the Tandem Press studio along with a small selection of the woodcut blocks and other ephemera remaining from the production of these artworks.
Saar is the recipient of the Southern Graphics Council International’s 2019 Lifetime Achievement in Printmaking Award. She will be honored with this award in March 2019 at the annual SGCI Conference.
This exhibition, along with all of the Tandem Press Apex Gallery exhibition programming, is made possible through support from the Anonymous Fund.
The Tandem Press Apex Gallery is located at 1743 Commercial Ave., Madison, WI 53704. This gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Saturdays from noon to 4 p.m.
There will be an opening reception on Feb. 1 from 5 to 7 p.m.
The Tandem Press, which was founded in 1987, is affiliated with the School of Education’s Art Department. The Tandem Press brings in artists who use its facilities to create editions of prints and interact with graduate and undergraduate students. The Press is one of the only professional presses affiliated with a university in the United States, and is internationally renowned, with Tandem prints hanging in museums and corporations across the country, Europe, and China.