2024-2025 Jerome Early Career Printmakers Residency Exhibition

The exhibition features work created by this years’ residents—Nancy Ariza, Conor McGrann, and Emma Ulen-Klees—over the last nine months. The three artists have been hard at work since September, pushing boundaries and exploring innovative approaches to printmaking. The culminating exhibition will showcase their creative growth and offer a glimpse into the vibrant future of contemporary printmaking.

If you had to choose one word to describe this group of artists, it would be prolific. During the in-progress critiques that have taken place over the last 8 months these artists have shown an astonishing amount of new work.

It’s difficult to overstate the exactitude Emma Ulen-Klees applies to her hyper-detailed cut stencil debossing and lithographic images she is developing. She says, "These past few months the studio has become crowded with the silhouettes of an incredible array of leaves, stems, tangled roots, and feathery blossoms.  Part of my series archiving rare or extinct plants through blind de-bossings, I look forward to giving each of these specimens space to breathe during the upcoming Jerome Exhibition. As shadows of absent species, this work denies easy reproduction, so I am grateful for the opportunity to share it in person with the Highpoint community.”

Conor McGrann is relatively new to the Twin Cities. His change of environment and new role as a father have been informing his work, albeit in a more analytical manner. His practice is generative, utilizing numerous digital and analog processes, including machine-cut vinyl stencils, plotter drawings, and etched copper plates.

Conor says: “In my time as a Jerome Resident I have been utilizing publically available geographic datasets of Minnesota wetlands. Through the use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software, I have coded, filtered, and manipulated the data, dropping unwanted information and obscuring it from its original didactic intent. I then exported the data as a vector file and once again filtered, manipulated, and cleaned the data so that I could output it through a plotting machine. This took the form of vinyl intaglio grounds to etch plates, direct cutting to create collagraph plates, and building my own custom instrument holder in order to hold pens to make drawings, and using etching needles to plot directly onto intaglio plates. I have researched and implemented all these techniques to make a body of work that speaks towards climate/parental anxiety, distrust in systems and technology, and my distaste with our culture’s comfort with the status quo.”

Nancy Ariza (very ambitiously) explored beginning an entirely new body of work during the residency year that reimagines the traditional Mexican board game Loteria. Ultimately though, she decided instead for this exhibition to focus on continuing to develop a large series of colorful geometric pattern studies. They are gorgeous! 

Gallery Hours:
Monday-Friday 9 AM - 5 PM
Saturday 12 PM - 4 PM