Spudnik Press Cooperative has 5 permanent staff. Our Board of Directors works closely with staff to guide overall policy and direction. Each year, we work with 4 Fellows who monitor our open studio program, and approximately 25 teaching artists.
Our Member Directory highlights the amazing community of artists involved with Spudnik Press Cooperative.
Nicolette Lim is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus in installation and a core in drawing. Originally from Malaysia, she moved to the states in 2014, and graduated in the Fall of 2018 from the University of Kentucky with a BFA in Studio Arts. Working across different mediums such as printmaking, animation and sculpture, her work depict queerness in the context of her home country Malaysia, where violence is an inherited norm from its colonizers. She investigates these affects on the queer experience today and the false norms that have been taken as inevitable. Nicolette currently resides in Chicago.
Dutes Miller’s collages, artists books and phallic sculptures examine the spaces where the artist’s inner life, queer subcultures and mass media intersect. Miller appropriates images from pornographic websites, magazines and his own imaginings to investigate alternative standards of beauty, visualizations of lust and desire found on the internet, and power dynamics in sexual relationships. Michelle Grabner wrote in ArtForum, “Miller’s mixed-media collages on paper incorporating penis figures striking silly states of repose and activity are enjoyable vignettes, demonstrating nimble material interplay.”
Miller’s work is driven by an investigation of queer male sexuality through a tactile exploration of materials, most often plaster, resin and paint and also including fabric, feathers, horns and other found objects. From a conceptual standpoint, he is interested in the notion of an object that is penetrable (orifice) versus one which penetrates (phallus). Appearing to be in states of transition, his sculptures attempt to find the potential conflation of the two.
Yasaman Moussavi is a visual artist and art instructor. She holds an MFA with two emphases on Painting and Printmaking from Texas Tech University, where she explored and developed her skills in papermaking, printmaking, and installation art. Her work reflects the spiritual attachment to places and the emotional tension between today’s precarious living and the Persian’s poetic tradition of “living in harmony with nature.” Her works have have been displayed in many national and international solo and group exhibitions. She is a co-founder of Didaar Art Collective, a Chicago -based Iranian art community. She works and live in Chicago.
Image: Detail of If I Sought an Echo, I’d Now Be Addressing a Mountain, 2019
Trained as a printmaker in Boston, MA, Catherine maintains an interest in producing artist books, fiber and print works. She investigates a lifelong curiosity in human relationships through imagery that references scientific illustration, the human body, and maps. She also enjoys the surprising and beautiful possibilities in incorporating found images and select textures in collage. Beyond her visual practice, Catherine works to support the growth of creative communities at Arts of Life and Spudnik Press Cooperative. She serves as a member of Spudnik’s Exhibition Committee, actively advocating to increase visibility of emerging printmakers in the Chicago Arts community. She is drawn to printmaking in particular because it is a community-based practice – it is not about being alone in a studio, but very much about being in conversation with and sometimes collaboration with others.
Design by Angelika is a multi-service design and print shop based in Chicago led by Angelika Piwowarczyk (and her trusted sidekick, Flora the German Shepherd). The projects that come out of this little studio vary from custom stationery to small business branding to commissioned artwork, and anything in between!
Yang Pulongbarit-Cuevo is a Chicago-based papercut artist and illustrator mainly inspired by nature, music, anatomy, and folklores. Yang started as a political cartoonist for The Manila Collegian, the official student publication of the University of the Philippines in Manila, where she received her bachelor’s degree in Organizational Communication. She eventually earned her master’s degree in Development Communication from the same university, while accumulating about 8 years of combined work experience in marketing and business development. Studying and working in the field of communication complements her art practice, as she allows her work to impart messages in imaginative and symbolic ways. Yang also hosts a weekly radio show and writes newsletters for the Chicago Independent Radio Project – another local non-profit organization.
Fun Fact: Her life is pretty much recorded in a bunch of Excel spreadsheets and Trello boards.
E-mail: yang@spudnikpress.org
Websites: www.yangcuevo.com | www.papercutmaps.com
Esmeralda Reyes is a Mexican-American artist born in Grand Haven, Michigan. She is a printmaker focused on intaglio and lithography. Esmeralda graduated from Kendall College of Art & Design in 2020 with a BFA in Printmaking and a minor in Illustration. Esmeralda’s printmaking style is informed by her illustrative background. Her work focuses on human relationships, traits, stereotypes, and combining humans with animals that share physical and metaphorical similarities. Her work that was featured at the Fresh Looks Exhibition at Eastern Michigan University made her a Windgate Fellowship nominee for her precise craft.
Breanna Robinson is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Chicago. She studied at the School of the Art institute of Chicago, where she earned a BFA in 2017. Her work manifests mainly through printmedia, although she often utilizes collage, painting, html, and object-making.
Nicolette has long been a contributor to the Spudnik Press community. Since first joining our organization in 2012, Nicolette has been an active member and volunteer, while teaching many of our relief printmaking and bookbinding classes.
She holds a BFA with an emphasis in Printmaking and Book Arts from the University of Central Florida, and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts from Washington University in St. Louis.
She is the Studio Manager at Double Trip Press, a premier letterpress studio located in the East Lakeview neighborhood.
@rosspressandbindery
nicoletterossprint@gmail.com
Vida Sačić is a Croatian-American artist, designer and educator. Her work in print media explores the relationship between printing and language. She prints and creates large-scale installations; assemblages of prints on paper, textiles and fiber using moveable type, letters that can be touched, and a printing press. Her works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions nationwide, including DeVos Art Museum (MI), Art Mora Gallery (New York City), Columbia College (Chicago) and The Center for Book Arts (New York City). Sačić has been recognized as an Artist-in-Residence at The Penland School of Art and Craft (North Carolina), The Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum (Wisconsin), The Center for Book and Paper Arts (Chicago, Illinois) and Tiporenesansa Studio (Ljubljana, Slovenia) among others. She is an Associate Professor of Art at Northeastern Illinois University and works in her studio in the Ravenswood neighbourhood of Chicago.
Jake Saunders is a Chicago artist working in printmaking as well as drawing and painting. Hailing from Muncie, Indiana, Jake grew up with a love for a variety of narrative based art forms, which became a focus in his art practice. After becoming fascinated with the unique aesthetics of woodcuts and etchings and their aptitude for seriality and multiplicity, Jake earned a BFA and MA in printmaking from Ball State University and went on to earn his MFA at the University of Connecticut. He has since gone on to show nationally and internationally. Today, Jake’s work amalgamates narratives to explore the concept of tragedy in forms both grand and mundane.
