Sister Corita Kent

My first exposure to Sister Corita Kent was a few years ago in Eye no. 35:

Corita regarded printmaking as “a very democratic form, since it enables me to produce a quantity of original art for those who cannot afford to purchase high-priced art.”  The forms she used – serigraphs, greeting cards, posters, murals – and the way she disseminated her work – through churches, community centres, galleries and fairs – made her art widely accessible, without ever descending to an imagined lowest common denominator of visual literacy.

Although her work evolved over her career, what I always loved was her re-assemblage of advertising slogans, commercial products, headlines, etc., her distorted typography, her bold color palettes, her strong philosophical/political messages and the overall positivity and freshness that emanates from her work and has it feel as new today as it did over 40 years ago.

I’ve been seeing more and more coverage of her work over the past year and thought Printeresting would be a good place to introduce her work (most notably, her screenprints) to anyone unfamiliar. So here’s a list of sorts you might want to check out:

• The most obvious would be Corita Art Center

• Come Alive!: The Spirited Art of Sister Corita (published last year by Four Corners Books).

• Some words by Aaron Rose of ANP Quarterly.

• The above mentioned article in Eye magazine.

Plus if you happen to be in either Dundee or NYC over the next month …

Dundee Contemporary Arts will be exhibiting some of Sister Corita’s work in the show Power Up and Exit Art will be showing some work as part of the larger exhibition: Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now. In conjunction with these exhibitions, both galleries will also be offering screenprinting workshops.