Truth and Consequences: Samantha Parker Salazar / Daryl Vocat / Raluca Iancu (PrintHouston 2014)

In conjunction with PrintHouston 2014, Anya Tish Gallery is excited to announce a three-person exhibition entitled Truth and Consequences, featuring work by US and Canadian printmakers: Samantha Parker Salazar, Daryl Vocat, and Raluca Iancu. Opening Reception: Friday, May 30, 6:00 – 8:30 pm. On view: May 30 – July 3, 2014. Exhibition curated by Sarah Ansell.

This show features prints that are flat, sculptural, and large-scale installations, all celebrating the extensive possibilities within the art of printmaking, and highlighting the structural, visual, and technical innovations these three artists explore in their practice.

Chicago born, Austin resident, Samantha Parker Salazar creates site-specific installations of hand cut paper she has printed and drawn on. Salazar paints directly onto the gallery wall, transforming it into another matrix of her work, and marries it with the carefully excavated, lattice-like paper to create an immersive, intricate environment that begs the viewer to lean in.

Referencing life cycles on both the macro and micro scale, her installations personify the inevitability of raveling and unraveling, construction and destruction. Samantha Parker Salazar received her Masters in Printmaking from the University of Texas in May, and was awarded the John Fergus Post-MFA Fellowship at Ohio State University, beginning this fall.

Daryl Vocat of Toronto, Ontario uses four-color separations as well as solid shape printing techniques to construct his sequential narratives. Vocat redraws illustrations from old Boy Scout handbooks, coupling the drawings with symbols that are associated with gay culture. He then prints the flat shapes and line work over photographic, but unidentifiable images of green spaces.

Initially, the final pieces emanate a sense of simple naïveté; they mimic the convoluted assumption of childhood innocence. Viewing the series of prints together unveils a different reality, one where adolescents first begin to navigate their enigmatic sexuality. Daryl Vocat received his MFA in 2001 from York University in Toronto, Ontario. He has been exhibited extensively throughout Canada as well as in North America, and has received numerous grants and awards for his work.

Montreal-based Raluca Iancu works both two and three-dimensionally, through serigraphy and relief techniques, on paper and on canvas. Her prints rarely deviate from the 8-color crayon box palette, and when paired with thick line work, they become unobtrusive representations of fateful vehicular collisions. The pieces are superficially innocuous, even playful, but the lack of human presence makes the deserted, crumpled automobiles all the more perplexing.

Raluca Iancu received her BFA in Printmaking from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2011, and will earn her MFA in Printmaking from The University of Tennessee—Knoxville in 2015. She has exhibited internationally, and has held residencies in The Netherlands, New York City, and Poland. She will be a visiting artist at the National University of the Arts in Bucharest, Romania this summer.

Pictured: Raluca Iancu, "Pile Up", 2011. 3D constructed screen print on Fabriano paper. 27.5 x 15.75 x 6.5 inches.