Prints & Works on Paper
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2018 Nilüfer Children’s Library, Bursa, Turkey
2007 Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond Museums, VA, USA
2006 Galeri Nev, Ankara, Turkey
Selected Group Exhibitions
Picturebook Illustrators (permanent collection), Paper and Book Arts Museum, Ege University, Izmir, April 2016
International Printmakers Exhibition and Portfolio, From There to Here (Bridges), Southern Graphics Council Exhibition & Conference, Curated by Prof. Karen Kunc & Prof. Rokeya Sultana, USA, an exhibition at the Southern Graphics Council International Conference in San Francisco, March 26- 30, 2014 (San Francisco)
SGC Conference, Echo Portfolio, The Kansas City Art Institute, USA, 2007
From There to Here
Location: Academy of Art University, Print Studios at 60 Federal Street (1st Floor)
Date: Saturday, March 29th, 2014
Organizers: Karen Kunc and Rokeya Sultana
Participants: Michael Schneider, Jasmin Edelbrunner, Rokeya Sultana, Abdullah al Bashir, Ibrahim Miranda, Héctor Ruiz, Wael El Sabour, Mohammed Ramadan, Paivikki Kallio, Laura Vainikka, Ajit Seal, Bhaskar Jyoti Borgohain, Patricia Hernández Rondán, Gil Gijón Bastante, Ilgim Veryeri Alaca, Elvan Serin, Karen Kunc, Camille Hawbaker
This theme is addressed by global artists who collaborate to build a bridge of connections with each other and with our students through a print portfolio exchange. From There to Here refers to the transferal nature of printmaking actions that take information from matrix sources and impresses it, via ink, pressure, intent, into/onto another strata, that itself becomes the transportable carrier of image and idea. Also, as teachers and students, our theme honors our legacy of sharing, the transmission of influence and inspiration connecting masters to the next generation, our love for the print, and our rich print history, that is often an oral tradition. This portfolio of prints is the actual presence of global cultural exchange, while our collaborative relationships are conceptual bridges, spanning place, time, and impressions of the other, From There to Here.
Rokeya Sultana is Professor and Head of the Department of Printmaking, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is a Fulbright Scholar, and has received awards from France, India, USA, Bangladesh. Her works have been shown in international venues in Poland, Zimbabwe, Japan, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Nepal, Korea, USA.
Karen Kunc is Cather Professor of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has been recognized with Fulbright Scholar Awards to Finland and Bangladesh, two NEA Fellowships, the 2007 Printmaker Emeritus Award from SGCI. She has exhibited and taught around the world, in Egypt, Italy, Canada, Finland, Poland, Japan, France, Mexico, Iceland.
Echo Portfolio
Bill Hosterman, printmaker and assistant professor of Art and Design at Grand Valley, organized The ECHO Portfolio, which is comprised of three tiers of artists. He began by inviting five artists, whose work has influenced him, to comprise the first tier of the portfolio. Each of the artists, including Bill, then invited another artist to participate, forming the second tier of the portfolio. The six artists in the second tier completed the portfolio by inviting six more artists to join. In the three rounds, a total of 18 artists from around the world are represented.
"The prints in the portfolio were created in a variety of sizes to physically represent the concept of an echo," said Hosterman. "Each image is a representation of some aspect of the artist, and visually plays off the other images in the portfolio. Viewed together in a gallery setting, the pieces are able to visually respond to one another, echoing the influences within the printmaking world."
The works were created independently, without knowledge of what fellow artists were working on, yet a remarkable echo of style is recognized in many of the pieces. For example, Hosterman's, piece "Exchange," is a swirling mass of colorful lines merged with block shapes of various sizes and colors. He invited artist Tanja Softic, who was born in Sarajevo and is a professor of art at the University of Richmond, in Virginia, to participate. Her work had been a landmark on Hosterman's own journey as an artist.
"I have always had an intuitive idea of what I wanted to accomplish as an artist, but I often have been unsure what artistic direction to take," said Hosterman. "When I saw Tanja's work for the first time, I realized that she was working with many ideas that I felt a kinship to. She juxtaposes images from nature with images from modern culture and intends her work to be read like a narrative. Her work can be interpreted on a purely visual level, and conceptually."
Softic, in turn, asked an artist whose work she admired to participate in the portfolio. She chose Ilgim Veryeri-Alaca, who was born in Istanbul, because she has a masterful handling of the traditional media coupled with modern poetic sensibility that make her prints and drawings, beautiful at first sight and that much more aesthetically and intellectually satisfying upon closer reading. "And because idea of an echo seems particularly suited to her work," said Softic.