The 2022 McKnight Printmaking Fellowship began in February (2022) and ran through January (2023). During this time, Amy Sands and Nicole Sara Simpkins worked extremely hard to develop visual (and audio) content for their 2-person exhibition that took place in Highpoint’s galleries. Many images of the exhibition can be viewed below.
Other highlights of the fellowship year include a visit In from Orin Zahra (Associate Curator at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, DC). In October, she traveled to Minnesota to visit with and view the in-progress work of Amy and Nicole in their studios. Then in November of 2022, the artists welcomed Ruth Erickson (Mannion Family Senior Curator at Institute of Contemporary Art Boston) for individual studio visits.
In the midst of the exhibition run, Highpoint welcomed Amy E. Elkins to lead a public conversation with the fellows on Friday, February 3 from 6-7 pm. You can view a recording of the conversation here or by pressing play on the image to the left.
Amy E. Elkins is an Associate Professor of English at Macalester College and is the author of Crafting Feminism from Literary Modernism to the Multimedia Present (Oxford University Press, 2022). As a multimedia artist and scholar, her work takes up intersectional feminist approaches to practice-based research methods in the humanities.
You can purchase Amy’s book here.
About the fellows:
LEFT: Orin Zahra with Amy Sands RIGHT: Nicole Sara Simpkins with Ruth Erickson
Amy Sands said this about the work she’s developed during the fellowship: “This new body of work embodies investigations into nature. Using light and shadow as a metaphor for our existence, I have been examining the precarious balance of an ecosystem. My current work uses photography, videography, printmaking, and installation to explore shadows of natural forms diffused through fabric. Nature is reduced to simple shapes and colors revealing only the silhouette of the plant. Differences between species are camouflaged, leaving one to admire the beauty and simplicity of the shadows and finding commonalities between forms.”
Amy Sands (MFA, Pratt Institute) is a Minneapolis-based artist and educator. She has exhibited in solo and group shows both nationally and internationally and has been recognized with awards including First Prize ~ Mini Print III International Cantabria/Impact 10 in Santander, Spain; Juror’s Choice Award ~ Awagami International Miniature Print Exhibition 2017, Tokushima, Japan; First Place ~ Home exhibition at the Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead, MN. Her work is included in many public and private collections and is represented at Muriel Guépin Gallery in New York City, Davidson Galleries, Seattle, and Base Gallery, Tokyo. Sands is Associate Professor of Studio Arts at Metropolitan State University, St Paul, MN.
Nicole Sara Simpkins uses printmaking, writing, and drawing to explore entanglements of culture, ecosystems, and personal healing. Her fascination with relationality has fueled her continued research into the culturally-determined category of invasive plants. Using linoleum prints, screen prints, cyanotypes and drawings, she constructs assemblages of cut and stitched layers that invoke complex entanglements of resurgent plants and tumultuous extraction. She presented cyanotypes layered with etchings and drawings as 2-dimensional works on paper, as well as an immersive installation of tapestry-forms suspended from above.
She holds an MFA in Printmaking from Indiana University - Bloomington and a BA in Creative Writing from Macalester College. Her work has been supported by a 2018-19 Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, and by artist residencies at Millay Arts, The Ucross Foundation, The Vermont Studio Center, The Jentel Foundation, Artspace Raleigh, The Future, and The White Page. She teaches courses in drawing and printmaking and has exhibited work locally and nationally.
Highpoint would like to offer our sincere gratitude to Orin Zahra, Ruth Erickson, and Amy E. Elkins for their support of Amy and Nicole during the fellowship and exhibition. We’re also again like to thank artists Willie Cole and Nicola López for all their effort as the panelists for the 2022 application cycle.
And of course, thank you to the McKnight Foundation for their generous and continued support of this program and their recognition of Minnesota artists.
The McKnight Printmaking Fellowships are open to Minnesota artists who are at a career level that is “beyond emerging” — defined here as artists who demonstrate a sustained level of accomplishment, commitment, and artistic excellence within the field of printmaking. The artists are selected on the basis of the artistic merit of their work, and their dedication, interest, and continued growth in printmaking.