Stella Lowery `24 and Georgia Carbone `24 opened their joint art show “Green, Pink, and Yellow” in the Smith Gallery on Jan. 30. “Green, Pink, and Yellow” displays monoprints Lowery and Carbone made after taking a printmaking class in Fall 2021.
The day after their successful opening night on Sunday, Jan. 30, Carbone shared that she and Lowery enjoyed exploring printmaking further in their free time outside of class. “It felt pretty natural to want to exhibit work,” said Carbone. She attributed this feeling to their shared experiences attending the same high school in New York and hosting annual art shows.
Carbone and Lowery took a variety of introductory art classes there, including a printmaking class. However, this course did not give enough studio time or freedom to explore different methods compared to the printmaking course at Grinnell.
This freedom to explore creative techniques allowed Lowery and Carbone to use a variety of different methods to produce their prints.
Lowery burnt silkscreen to create stencils, drew with water-soluble crayons, and used pressure to push colors through the screens to create her silkscreen monoprints. These, along with many other nuanced steps, allowed her to create a variety of textures in her art pieces.
Lowery said that she and Carbone were particularly interested in the “unpredictability” of the print-making process since “once it’s being printed it kind of isn’t really up to [them] anymore.” This unpredictability is guaranteed in the printmaking process, as no two prints are exactly alike.
Carbone produced monotype prints. Her process involved rolling layers of ink onto a glass plate and using thin plastic sheets to create many different shapes in her pieces. Her pieces in the gallery are all connected by common threads of shared shapes and colors.
Carbone described how even if she started a piece with a goal in mind, “a lot of the prints make themselves, even though I’m the one making them. Once they’re on the page, the ink mixer makes its own textures and things that I can’t predict.”
When their pieces were complete, Lowery and Carbone realized they were both drawn to the same colors during their creative processes. With this revelation in mind, they settled on the name for their show: “Green, Pink, and Yellow.”
According to Carbone, they were both initially hesitant to do solo shows and realized that by producing a joint show, they would be able to “guide each other through it.” As a result of the pandemic, they had no frame of reference for what art shows in the gallery should look like. They chose to display pieces considered non-traditional and unique, and intend to hold more shows in the future.
During the height of the pandemic, the Smith Gallery hosted no art shows in the physical space of the Smith Gallery. Instead, according to Studio Art Technician Joe Tuggle Lacina, the Gallery chose to host digital art shows on its website.
In regards to the application process for hosting an art show in the gallery, Tuggle Lacina shared that at the end of each semester there is an open call for applicants. The application itself is a proposal including a description of show plans, special equipment or installation requirements, and photos of current works. Tuggle Lacina said that the application is “open to anyone who’s an art major or anyone who’s currently enrolled in studio art class.”
“Green, Pink, and Yellow” will be in the Smith Gallery until Feb. 13. The schedule for the rest of the spring semester includes displays from Zainab Thompson from Feb. 13-27, McKenna Doherty and Hannah Agpoon from Feb. 27 to Mar. 13, Maxwell Sorenson from Apr. 3 to Apr. 17 and Paula Persiani from Apr. 17 to May 1.
