Engaged and Fragmented

Here’s a quick photo tour of Engaged and Fragmented: Paper Helps Healing, a papermaking exhibition on view Russell Hill Rogers Galleries at The Southwest School of Art and Craft in downtown San Antonio. The exhibition features a range of printed paperworks by Peter Sowiski, John Risseeuw, Eric Avery, and Drew Cameron and Drew Matott of the Combat Paper Project. Beyond the use of handmade paper, the work in the show is tied together thematically by the military as subject. San Antonio is home to one of the largest military concentrations in the United States and while that may make the show of particular interest to many people in San Antonio, you don’t need ties to the armed forces to find Engaged and Fragmented interesting and relevant.

A pulp painting of a nearly life-size stealth bomber…

Peter Sowiski, Stealth Service, Handmade Paper w/Colored Pulps & Silkscreen, 12′x60′, 2005.

Each module of Steath Service is silkcreened with a key showing its place in the grid. It’s a really nice repetitive element within the piece.

Detail of a piece by Drew Cameron and Drew Matott. Printeresting has posted about their Combat Paper Project in the past (read more here and here).

This piece and the two pictured below are by John Risseeuw. They are combination woodcut, polymer relief, letterpress, and color pencil on handmade paper, 2003.

More John Risseeuw. These two images (above and below) are from Risseeuw’s Paper Landmine Print Project. I don’t have the individual titles but both are cast handmade paper from 2006. The series features different types of landmines. Like some of the other pieces in the show, it’s a strange rendering of dangerous weapons in a benign material.

While the subject of the military may evoke different sentiments depending on one’s political leanings, only Eric Avery’s work was overtly political. Avery had a room full of glow-in-the-dark prints including some repeat pattern wallpapers. Click on the images for larger views.

As a first time visitor to Southwest School of Art and Craft, I was really impressed by their historic campus. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and is located right on the River Walk. It’s beautiful even in mid-December; these pictures don’t do it justice. Definitely worth stopping by if you find yourself in San Antonio. The exhibition Engaged and Fragmented is on view until January 24th.