Cover artwork: Alan Shields, Rain dance route, 1985. Photo: Oak Knoll Books
Join us at Mason Exhibitions Arlington on Thursday, February 27, 6-8pm for a conversation with the authors of Radical Paper: Art and Invention with Colored Pulp!
In Radical Paper, the authors discuss the contemporary breakthrough of using colored paper pulp as an integral element in creating art – as opposed to serving only as the surface on which art is created.
The book chronicles the rapid development of the movement over the last 70 years, and how early practitioners in the mid-20th century first began manipulating colored pulp, freeing it from its two-dimensional function as a substrate.
Mapping out new directions in using colored paper pulp, progressive papermakers, such as Douglass Morse Howell, Laurence Barker, and Kenneth Tyler, inspired the careers of generations of artists, including Pacita Abad, El Anatsui, Firelei Báez, Leonardo Drew, Torkwase Dyson, Melvin Edwards, Helen Frankenthaler, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Mona Hatoum, David Hockney, Jim Hodges, Eddie Martinez, Wangechi Mutu, Adam Pendleton, Howardena Pindell, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, and Alan Shields, who have taken this medium in fresh and unexpected directions.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Lynn Sures creates multi-media works examining the juncture of geology, physics, and the origins of humans. She has been a SARF Fellow in Kenya and a US State Department American Artist Abroad in Sri Lanka. As an artist-in-residence, she made works at Museu Molí Paperer de Capellades, Spain, and the Press at the Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe. Collections that hold her works include US Dept. of State; Library of Congress; Yale University; Schomburg Collection, NY Public Library; Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Museum; Museo della Carta e della Filigrana, Fabriano, Italy; Museum of Art & Photography, Bangalore, India; and Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt. Sures is Professor Emerita, Corcoran College of Art & Design (GWU).
Michelle Samour’s work explores the intersections between science, technology, and the natural world, and the socio-political repercussions of redefining borders and boundaries. Her artist residencies include Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and The Banff Centre. She has exhibited her work at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Kohler Art Center, and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. She has received grants from the MA Cultural Council and a Society of Arts and Crafts NE Artist Award. Collections that hold her work include the International Paper Company, Meditech, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Watson Library. Samour is Professor Emerita of the SMFA at Tufts University.