Nights & Weekends
to
Tandem Press 1743 Commercial Ave., Madison, Wisconsin 53704
October 5-December 8, 2018. Reception: Friday, October 5, 2018; 5-8pm.
Tandem Press Apex Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm; Saturday, 12-4pm
press release: Tandem Press is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Nights & Weekends at the Tandem Press Apex Gallery. This exhibition features a selection of artwork created by Tandem Press staff members Bruce Crownover, Seth Klekamp, J Myszka Lewis, Rachael Griffin, Jason Ruhl, and Sona Pastel-Daneshgar, highlighting their individual artistic endeavors. Nights & Weekends will include both representational and abstract imagery, spanning a variety of media including printmaking, photography, collage, and sculpture. Although their conceptual interests and aesthetic styles are individually distinct, this group of artists are tied together, not only through their shared employment at Tandem Press, but also through a common tendency to closely study their subject matter and sharply consider subtleties of perception.
Nights & Weekends will be on view from Friday October 5 through Saturday December 8, 2018. An opening reception will be held from 5 to 8pm on Friday, October 5, in conjunction with the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art’s Fall Gallery Night. This event will also coincide with the first concert in Tandem Press’s annual Friday Jazz Series. The UW Jazz Studies Program’s Blue Note Ensemble, directed by Johannes Wallmann, and the Contemporary Jazz Ensemble, directed by Jonathan Greenstein, will perform from 5 to 7pm. Following the opening reception, the exhibition will be on view during the Tandem Press Apex Gallery’s normal business hours: Monday-Friday 9am-5pm and Saturday 12-4pm.
Bruce Crownover is an artist and printmaker whose work continues in the long-standing tradition of exploring nature. He is fascinated by ordinary – and extraordinary – landscapes, weather, and space. Considering a variety of perspectives, from the micro- to the macroscopic, Crownover is continually compelled to draw or paint his perception of juxtaposed views of our world. Bruce Crownover’s current work includes a series of reductive woodcuts made in contribution to The Last Glacier, a collection of artworks and artist books which document the remaining glaciers in Glacier National Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park. Artworks from The Last Glacier have been collected by several institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University, and the US Library of Congress. Bruce Crownover received his BFA from Utah State University-Logan and his MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is one of the master printers for Tandem Press.
Seth Klekamp is a photographer and musician. He is heavily influenced by the natural world and travels extensively in order to experience a multitude of different landscapes and cultures. He finds comfort in the idea that we as individuals cannot control anything, but rather we sink into the rest of the world, becoming a part of something much larger than ourselves. This mentality is expressed in Klekamp’s work as intriguing kaleidoscopic studies of landscapes and layered views of an environment. Seth Klekamp holds a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse and is the preparator for Tandem Press.
J Myszka Lewis is a visual artist working primarily in printmaking and fiber arts. Her work prods at the distinctions between what it means “to make” and “to build”. As making often implies a lowered level of seriousness, functionality, or necessity in the produced item, building is in contrast utilitarian and purposeful, yielding something greater than the sum of its parts. Borrowing from the languages of both making and building, Lewis creates bricks and access (manhole) covers using fabric, dye, thread, and wood to address conceptions of certainty, familiarity, stability, and labor. In addition to her individual studio practice, Lewis also collaborates with two other artists under the name SPOOKY BOOBS, using art, language, and design to visualize the trivialization of women’s experiences. J Myszka Lewis completed her BFA at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her MFA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a curator for Tandem Press.
Rachael Griffin is an Ohio born printmaker and painter. Her work, predominately large-scale monotypes, refers to the human appetite and pulls at the reasoning behind questions such as
‘why do we like the things we like?’ and ‘why do we do the things we do?’. Griffin’s images of fruit, pastries, and meat are iconic of the American diet, but they also consider the mysterious notions of idealism, beauty, and taste. Rachael Griffin holds a BFA from Ohio University and a MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Griffin is actively involved in the Vox Populi Print Collective, collaborates on a body of artwork and traveling exhibition titled Women Against Hate United by Love, and is the financial manager for Tandem Press.
Jason Ruhl works predominately in print-based media, taking fragmented pieces of graphic ephemera and reworking them into simplified, enigmatic images. His current practice includes two bodies of work. The first is the result of a collaborative process in which Ruhl solicits lists of songs from friends and acquaintances. These songs serve as the inspiration for unique printed and collaged artworks which Jason Ruhl then gifts back to the participant. Ruhl’s other body of work utilizes second hand QSL cards as source material for abstract collages. Jason Ruhl received his BFA from Minnesota State University and his MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the studio manager and one of the master printers for Tandem Press.
Sona Pastel-Daneshgar was born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana. She received her BFA in Photography and BA in Art History from Indiana University in 2007 and her MA in Library and Information Studies, with concentrations in art librarianship and photographic collections, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2014. Her creative work includes photography and book arts and conceptually explores memory, place, and the natural world. Sona Pastel-Daneshgar is a curator for Tandem Press.