Original Prints and Print Reconstructions

Steven Chapp

24 August 2018 - 24 September 2018

OPENING RECEPTION Friday, 24 August 2018, 5 - 8 pm

Bio

Steven Chapp is the owner of Black Dog Press and Studio in Greenville, SC where he offers workshops in various printmaking techniques and can provide services as a master printer for collaborations with other artists to produce limited editions.

Chapp has thirty years of experience as an art educator working in the Greenville, SC school system, Greenville County Museum of Art, the Greenville County Schools Fine Arts Center's Explore the Arts program, the summer program for the Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities and Clemson University's, Charles Daniel Center for Urban Studies in Genoa, Italy. As a private instructor, he has conducted workshops with a variety of organizations across the southeast United States.

Chapp is a founding member and the current Chair of the Contemporary Print Collective CPC is a group of around 27 Upstate S.C. printmakers that meet monthly at the Greenville Center for Creative Arts.

Artist Statement 

I have always enjoyed the process of making a singular or repeatable image by creating marks on a surface be it wood, metal or on an acrylic plate. Printmaking, regardless of the process, is a medium in which I feel compelled to do this. It is my objective to create images that not only speak of marks but to have marks that speak for the image. As an artist, I am foremost an observer of things around me whether they be the landscape, people or animal. In many of my images, I use the crow as a metaphor for humankind. To me, the crow is an observer, a watcher of events, the ever-present watchful eye.

Recently I have explored a passion of mine, my ancestors. With numerous photos and letters going back over a hundred years I have begun a quest to re-document their existence. Some of my recent works have developed from older printed images and from a variety of print media such as lithographs, etchings, monotypes, relief prints and solarplate intaglio. These new works excite me in that they require me to look at older and recent images that were created with different compositional concerns with a fresh eye. I refer to these new compositions as mixed print media collages or Print Reconstructions.