This exhibition is made up of the artwork from two separate schools: Illinois State University and Limerick School of Art and Design in Limerick, Ireland. Each of the forty-six participants made a suite of twelve works of the same size and the two schools shuffled them so that each person received a mixture of American and Irish works.
The Americans participating in this project are Illinois State students enrolled in Art 347: Advanced Printmaking, as well as printmaking faculty and staff. What we have in common with our European counterparts is varied levels of experience in printmaking and an interest in a larger conversation about art, the multiple, and the variable.
Suite exchanges are fairly common in printmaking and often bring two schools together or artists together around a particular theme. Though this portfolio has no theme, there are interesting motifs and connections that appear between works despite the distance that separates the artists.
This suite exchange was initiated and organized by Illinois State Professor Richard Finch and Limerick School of Art and Design Professor Sercan Sahin. It has been additionally facilitated by Normal Editions Workshop Associate Director Veda Rives as well as Associate Professor Sarah Smelser and Visiting Associate Lecturer Morgan Price, who team-teach Art 347: Advanced Printmaking.