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Penelope Stewart is an artist, curator/writer and publisher whose multi-disciplinary practice encompasses expansive architectural installations/interventions, alternative photography, artist books, and works on paper. Re-current themes address notions of cultural memory, of time and space and a considered approach to the relationship between objects, architecture, gardens, landscape and the places between – places to intervene, inhabit and above all activate. Whether it has been historic sites such as Musée Barthète, a small museum in France, or a museum like the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY or the deconstruction/reconstruction of a 19 th century book of botany using cyanotype, her intentions are to create sensory spaces, haptic experiences, transforming our perceptions and possible readings of space, time and memory.

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The incompleteness of presence

the incompleteness of presence

I feel rooted in print, as it is the medium that slows me down to consider and to hear more clearly my thoughts. It acts much like a sorting process. As most [print] methods are heavily based in a step-by-step system of actions to produce the desired effect, you must break down the image and the parts and connect those to the methods. For me this quiet, almost meditative approach helps to organize and edit the chatter in my creative self. I know from experience that if I miss a step that is it …for the work and I must start again. Printmaking is a place of centering and focus for me…a ritual way of breaking down the thoughts to find the more essential parts to negotiate the edges of what I am considering.

Excerpt from a conversation with Tara Westermann, Gallery Director at Smokestack Gallery,

Penelope Stewart’s solo-exhibition, the incompleteness of presence, presents one of her artist books in accompaniment with a suite of photo screen prints on Japanese paper. This suite of prints is a new project inspired by Stewart’s experiences during a residency at la Maison Patrimoniale de Barthète: a museum dedicated to historic tiles, faïence and contemporary art, on a 19th century estate in the Midi-Pyrénées, France. During the residency, Stewart’s time was divided between wandering and foraging in the vast gardens of the estate, and deep explorations into the workrooms of the museum. Each experience became a fold in thinking about archives, gardens, and collections.

To coincide with the opening and run of Penelope’s solo exhibition here at Smokestack, we have collaborated with Penelope to release a suite of limited edition hand-printed screen prints on tosa washi paper. Each is available as part of a closed edition of 7.

Tara Westermann