Tessellate

Spudnik Press Cooperative Fellows Ally Hembree, Hope Wang, Sean Mac, and Zakia Rowlett are pleased to present Tessellate, a night of collective artmaking and installation-building with the Chicago community. Hybridizing the fellows’ individual artistic practices, Tessellate invites guests to experience a variety of print-based techniques considering collage as a tool for creating narratives. Through screenprinting, paper embossing, risography, and relief printing, guests will construct their own prints into never-ending books as part of a collaborative viewing library at the Spudnik Press studio. Printmaking experience is not required and all materials will be provided.

This event is free and open to the public as part of the Hubbard Street Lofts Open House. The installation will be on view until Nov 10, 2019.

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Ally Hembree is a printmaker focused in screen printing, relief, and polyester plate lithography. She has a B.A. in Studio Art with a minor in Communication Studies from the University of Puget Sound. The subject matter of Ally’s work is heavily influenced by the environment in which she creates. While at the University of Puget Sound, she connected her critical interest in film media with her printmaking. Her senior thesis, Moments, inspired by the unforgiving Pacific Ocean, was an installation of 40+ polyester plate lithographs. Likewise the screenprints incorporated in Tessellate are influenced by the sometimes equally unforgiving Chicago cityscape.

Hope Wang is a Chicago-based artist and educator working in painting, screenprinting, photography, and weaving to create meticulous reproductions of primarily industrial and commercial facades. Drawing from architectural elements as symbols for how people negotiate belonging and agency in public spaces, her work questions an initial understanding of material and perception. She received her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has shown in exhibitions including Chicago Textile Week, Ignition Project Space, FRIEND, Chicago Art Department, Gallery No One, and Sullivan Galleries. She has also instructed workshops at The Weaving Mill, Loom Chicago, and Magical Minds Studio.

Sean Mac is a Chicago-based illustrator, cartoonist, and muralist. He uses comic books and zines as a platform for storytelling and narrative. He enjoys writing humorous stories and drawing colorful characters. In addition to self publishing his comics his work includes screenprinting and public art. He graduated with a BFA in Illustration from Columbia College Chicago.

Zakia Rowlett is an experimental Graphic Designer, currently based in Chicago, IL. She spent four years at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, earning her BFA in Graphic Design. Through the use of typography, layering texture, expression of color, and challenging traditional compositions she practices interdisciplinary digital and print media. Referencing multiple forms of communication from signage, human interaction, or recurring events as a way of demonstrating all things open to your own interpretation.

Tessellate is an opportunity to get an inside look into each of the fellows’ practices and also learn new techniques they can take home and apply in the future. We hope they can have fun with collage and story building while engaging with other guests’ pieces through the interactive installation. Fellows will also have affordable work for sale!