Art Department Faculty Quadrennial Exhibition 2016 January 2016 | Page 34

Jack Damer Professor UW–Madison Department of Art, since 1970 Printmaking 1965 Master of Fine Arts, Carnegie Mellon University  1960 Bachelor of Arts, Carnegie Mellon University  Recent achievements 2014 Spot On, solo show, Madison Train Station Gallery, Madison WI 2013 States of the State, invitational group show, The University of Arizona Museum of Art 2013 Invitational group show, The Art Museum, SUNY Potsdam 2013 PUSHING IT: Some Innovative Approaches In Contemporary Printmaking, group show, Dean Jensen Gallery, Milwaukee 2013 Tempting Equilibrium, group show, Des Lee Gallery, St. Louis 2013 Top Drawer Prints, invitational group show, Peltz Gallery, Milwaukee Artist’s statement Production since the last faculty exhibition has focused less on traditional printmaking and more on unorthodox procedures and ephemera. This may be due to a desire to accomplish images at a greater speed in response to aging, including the pressures, influence, doubt, and despair of contemporary living. Although print technology and photography with its ability to transmit pictorial themes remain as the basis of the new works, the concepts are far-reaching and subversive. The usual celebration of making and hands-on production with its vitalizing factors, reminiscent of earlier works, remains. “As an artist you can come to shape your own aesthetic as long as you don’t expect others to agree. And why should they? It’s your game. At the same time we all begin this inquiry on the periphery of the same body of knowledge, so if you can think it, it is not unreasonable to assume that someone else may also be thinking it, that there is an inherent dialogue of immanence.” Robert Irwin Work in the show Jack Damer (American, b. 1938) Conditional Probability, A Print/Drawing/Object Installation, 2015 Xerox, lithography, etching, acrylic, pencil, found objects 120 x 60 in. 18 Quadrennial 2016 | Faculty