Double Opening: Crush, Gush (Kate McQuillen) // Sequestered Spaces (Adrienne Miller)

On Saturday, March 28, Spudnik Press Cooperative host an Artist Reception for two concurrent exhibitions:

In The Annex:

Crush, Gush: A solo exhibition
A solo exhibition at Spudnik Press

The printing press is a tool that creates its product through extreme pressure. The works in this show cite materials that are also results of extreme pressure: namely, oil and diamonds. Themes of crushing and erupting are depicted as natural, yet violent, processes that are tied to these valuable elements within the earth.

Bouncing light, angled surfaces, erupting forms and petroleum products are presented throughout the show in prints and printmaking materials. Tympan grease, a facilitaing material for press operation, becomes the markmaking material in images of erupting crude oil spindletops; in other pieces, the crushing action of the printing press reworks images into fractured, compressed surfaces. McQuillen considers the value we place in these materials that come from deep within the earth, the human fascination with them, and the extreme conditions under which they are produced.

Kate McQuillen is a Chicago-based artist working in print and installation, and is represented by O’Born Contemporary. She has shown in Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, and Boston, and has works in public and private collections in Europe and North America. Writings about her work have been included in such news outlets as The Chicago Reader, Time Out Chicago and Rabble.ca, and in publications by Columbia College Chicago and Rutgers University.

In The Printshop:

Sequestered Spaces
New Work by Adrienne Miller

Within the tradition of landscape art, the term picturesque refers to a view where the human presence is apparent. Adrienne Miller uses this history to create print works that communicate an exploration of human psyche through constructed space. Open land represents possibilities while the more confined environments allow for Adrienne to communicate tension or anxieties that we encounter on a day to day basis – literally at times feeling as though the walls are moving in on us. Adrienne uses holes as absences or earth being dug up, displaced, or tunneled through to reference the retrieval and archival of memory. In her constructed world, fences demarcate areas in this uncharted psychological territory. Through shifts in perspective and unrealistic coexistence, Miller’s work encourages the viewer to address their own environments as well as themselves.

Adrienne Miller, a southerner by birth, just survived her second year as an official corn-eating, snow-shoveling, midwestern resident. After graduating from Murray State University in 2007 with her BFA in Studio Art, she found her way from Kentucky to Nashville as a summer intern for Hatch Show Print, a world famous, 130+ year old letterpress shop. She also spent time working as the Studio Manager and Gallery Coordinator for Vanderbilt University’s Department of Art.