Spudnik Press Cooperative is proud to introduce our next Studio Fellowship cohort, a group of six committed and talented emerging artists. Through the course of their fellowship, they will receive professional, artistic, and technical support that specifically addresses the needs of printmakers.
Established in 2013, this program to date has supported 49 artists with unfettered studio access to support the creation of a new body of print-based artwork, as well as a variety of other resources and opportunities. Through working in our shared studio and monitoring weekly Open Studio sessions, fellows engage with our community of printmakers and benefit from ongoing support and feedback from staff and peers.
With this cohort, we are increasing the number of artists this program serves. For the first time, we are bringing on six fellows instead of four. We feel that this is a small but essential way we can support our community. Now more than ever, artists need a reliable and communal space for artistic production.
At this time, we cannot physically invite these artists to our studios. While the many benefits of their fellowship are currently on hold, we remain honored to introduce these artists and look forward to scheduling their fellowship as soon as it is safe to do so.
Additionally, we would like to thank our outgoing studio fellows, Marc Benja, Efrat Hakimi, and Teresita Carson Valdéz for their inspirational art practices and their dedication to our Open Studio program. Once are studios are able to re-open, we look forward to the period of overlap between these two cohorts and nine artists.
Congratulations to our 2020 Studio Fellows:
Kelsey Gibson
Samantha Hensley
Dan Landgren
Griffin Miller
Osée Obaonrin
Robert Stokowy
Kelsey Gibson
Having been born and raised in St Augustine, the nation’s oldest city, there is no question as to why I’ve always found myself attracted to the antiquated and obsolete. I find myself significantly more intrigued by the past than with the future, and this notion is something that I explore with my art— not only through imagery but also by choosing manual printing as a means of production. I strive to educate and to preserve public history by studying and depicting the architecture, furnishings, and textile patterns of the past, however, I am particularly fascinated by the whimsical area in which the past and present visibly overlap.
Samantha Hensley
Sam Hensley is an printmaker, storyteller and sculptor from Kentucky. She mends together little storybooks for tales of endearing yet unsettling creatures of varying sentience. Nursing the emotion between disgust and affection for things that cannot be understood, she reflects her own experiences with mental illness, gender identity, and just feeling misshapen in your habitat. The telling of these stories is further aided by animatronic puppets that she constructs as vessels for her tragically friendly beings. She recently received her BFA from the university of Kentucky.
Dan Landgren
Dan Landgren is a motion and graphic designer based in Chicago.
“I graduated from DePaul University with a BFA in Graphic Design and a minor in Animation. As a multi-disciplinary designer, artist, and printmaker I have experience in 2D/3D animation, UX/UI design, videography + photography, bookmaking, screen printing, and risography. The driving force behind my work is experimentation and learning.”
Griffin Miller
Griffin Miller makes work under the online persona plant_boi.
“My work is primarily a formal experiment in shape, architecture and interaction of objects. Through this lens I have developed an interest in certain objects as visual means of communication; specifically: vessels, entryways, circles and their disruptions, repeating patterns and faces. I find these designs, successful and unsuccessful, to serve as a basis for my own logical and functional limitations when drawing.”
Osée Obaonrin
Osee Obaonrin is a writer and fiber artist originally from the Republic of Benin, who grew up in the Maryland/DC area and currently resides in Chicago, IL. Obaonrin focuses primarily on documentation. Documenting self. The feelings of grief and acts of mourning as a means of reflection and also as a means of actually performing the processes of grief and mourning. She attempts to reconcile with the losses that have opened her to grief, the pain that has come along with it and perhaps find hope as a means of resistance.
Robert Stokowy
Robert Stokowy is an artist and composer from Cologne, Germany. His work consists of experimental compositions, text-based interventions, performances and installations. More conceptual works utilize artistic practices such as photography, writing, printmaking and drawing. All projects are framed and connected by an overarching artistic research process, focussing on inner structural characteristics of found or created sonic environments. Using a radically reductive and interdisciplinary approach, Robert’s work investigate modes and possibilities of sonic accessibility. In short art is used as an interdisciplinary tool to understand one’s environment and the human condition.