Elmhurst College Hosts National Printmakers Exhibition

Submitted by Elmhurst College. Photo: Team Ramey, 2015, by Benjamin Rinehart. Pressure print, letterpress, laser copy, archival pigment print, embroidery thread and mylar.

From now through Nov. 22, Elmhurst College will host the Mid America Print Council’s Fall 2015 Juried Members’ Exhibition, featuring the work of 45 important contemporary printmakers from across the country.

This is the first time Elmhurst College has hosted the Mid America Print Council exhibition, which includes works from all printmaking media, including silk screen, etchings, lithographs, artist books, monoprints, digital and new media, letter press and archival print.

The Mid America Print Council, or MAPC, is an educational and community-based organization that focuses on all print-related arts. The MAPC Members’ Exhibition highlights works from its collective with breadth and depth of technical motivation and conceptual prowess, according to Hannah March Sanders, managing editor of the MAPC Journal.

This year the Exhibition was juried by Nicole Hand, professor of art at Murray State University in Kentucky, where she teaches printmaking, bookbinding and drawing. The exhibition drew 75 entrants from 30 states and three countries.

“Many of the pieces in this exhibition can transport you to another time or place and evoke an emotion from the viewer by the artists’ composition, imagery and individual mark,” Hand said in her juror’s statement, adding that the pieces she selected for the exhibition reflect how artists are using the language of printmaking in “compelling, beautiful, thought-provoking, and sometimes funny” ways.

“We’re very excited to host this major exhibition by printmakers from across the United States,” said Suellen Rocca, director of exhibitions at Elmhurst College. “This is a rare opportunity to see such a diverse and wide-ranging group of original prints, some more traditional and others very experimental. This should be a show of great interest to both our students and to the community.”

The Mid America Print Council Members’ Exhibition can be viewed days and evenings through Sunday, November 22, in the Founders Lounge of the Frick Center (190 Prospect Ave., Elmhurst, www.elmhurst.edu/campusmap). A public reception will be held on Thursday, November 12, from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the Founder Lounge. Both the exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. For more information, call (630) 617-5186.

The Mid America Print Council Members’ Exhibition is one of about a dozen art shows that Elmhurst College hosts each academic year in two campus venues. In addition, the College’s A.C. Buehler Library permanently houses the College’s unparalleled collection of Chicago Imagist and Abstractionist Art. For more information, please contact Suellen Rocca at (630) 617-6110 or srocca@elmhurst.edu.

Elmhurst College is a leading four-year college that seamlessly blends liberal learning and professional preparation to educate students for life in a global society and help them to reach their potential. Elmhurst College is the one of the Top 10 Colleges in the Midwest, according to U.S. News & World Report; and U.S. News, Money andForbes magazines consistently rank Elmhurst as one of the Midwest’s best values in higher education.