Tekst om Tou Trykk i bok om Nordisk kunstgrafikk 2020
Boken »Press On!« – en fersk rapport om den nordiske kunstgrafikkens, ble lansert på åpningen av den XVI Nordiske Grafikktriennalen i Sverige, 25. januar i 2020
Boken »Press On!« – en fersk rapport om den nordiske kunstgrafikkens rådende forhold og vilkår, ble lansert på åpningen av den XVI Nordiske Grafikktriennalen i Sverige, 25. januar i 2020. Her omtales 27 grafikkorganisasjoner, grafikkverksteder og studiesteder med kunstgrafisk utdannelse i de nordiske landene.
Tou Trykk i Stavanger var invitert til å representere de norske grafiske verkstedene, og jeg har bidratt med teksten om Tou Trykk. ISBN 978-91-519-2420-5
Utgivelsen av boken er støttet av Nordisk Kulturfond og Längmanska kulturfonden.
Begynnelsen av teksten som omhandler det grafiske verkstedet Tou Trykk i Stavanger i boken om Nordisk kunstgrafikk publisert i 22. januar 2020.
Tou Trykk - preparing for the future
Moving into new, more spacious and suitable premises in 2017 and being co-located with
31 studios for professional artists have vitalized the collaborative printmaking workshop Tou Trykk in Stavanger, Norway. This text gives a brief presentation of Tou Trykk supplemented with recent interviews of two of the users, the artists, Åse Anda and Anna Roos.
Tou Trykk has received sponsoring from both the local municipality and county as well as the Norwegian Arts Council to renew their technical equipment. The possibility for artists to print bigger formats makes the printmaking workshop even more attractive and has resulted in an increased number of both national and international visiting artists. Here they meet a vital, competent and professional environment. At the same time the over all activity level have increased, including the number of courses held for both beginners and experienced participants. Tou Trykks history goes back to 1972 when the local artist organization received their first lithography press. Tou Trykks present ambition is to work actively to develop into one of the most significant collaborative printmaking workshops in the Nordic hemisphere.
Tou Trykk is a printmaking workshop where the artists themselves normally perform the whole printing process. Good working conditions with focus on health and safety are essential and the printmaking workshop has included facilities for artists working with projects that require research and immersive exploration. The working areas are spacious with good air and lighting conditions, and there are several separate rooms for performing different tasks. A longterm goal is to run Tou Trykk as a toxic free workshop, manager Solveig Landa explains. Tou Trykk wishes to get in contact with other printmaking workshops that want to speed up the transition to toxic free facilities also within the Nordic Countries. Sharing of experience, knowledge and good practices are important and can help us prepare for the future, Landa explains.
Gallery and archive - Arkivet
One year after moving, Tou Trykk opened its own gallery space, Arkivet, across the hallway. Here they also keep an archive of selected printed artworks for sale. Local, national and international artists are invited to give shows in Arkivet, often combined with the artist leading special courses in the printmaking workshop. Christian Tunge was the first invited artist and in his Felt, he exhibited a different kind of prints, showing several green and worn out billiard blankets. This exhibition is one example of how artistic printmaking have expanded its meaning, showing different traces and trails of human activity.
As a result of Tou Trykks Open Call 2019, the Copenhagen based, multi medial artist Nina Maria Kleivan, will show her serigraph project called Falling Awake in Arkivet, as well as being a guest artist in the printmaking workshop.
Open minded collaboration
Tou Trykk keeps and builds a network of collaborators locally, nationally and internationally. The four weeks summer course Touching Landscape (2018) was directed by the artists Alva Mooses and Claudia Cortinez at Tou Trykks premises in Stavanger. This course, developed by their New York based collaborators, included exploration of local surfaces through experimental and traditional methods that intersected printmaking and photography through a sculptural perspective.
Coming up this fall, Tou Trykk collaborates with Kunsthall Stavanger when inviting the artist Ciara Phillips to Stavanger. Phillips will engage local artists in her open printing sessions facilitated at Tou Trykk, during five weeks. This is a part of Phillips expansive and experimental project to examine the capacity of printmaking to unite people in pursuit of a joint achievement. Results will be part of Phillips exhibition at Kunsthall Stavanger, but not without crediting the participated artists.
Åse Anda, Work in progress 2019, silkscreen, 320x44 cm
Photo: Erik Sæter Jørgensen
The neverending print project - Åse Anda
One of Åse Andas silkscreen artworks will be shown at the Nordisk Grafiktriennal XVI 2020.
Anda has been working predominantly with printmaking over the last 30 years, and her art practice is both traditional and experimental. Anda is one of the artists working on a yearly rent agreement with Tou Trykk, and she truly appreciates Tou Trykks spacious rooms and the new equipment. The arrival of a new and larger silkscreen table made it possible for Anda to make a 40 meter long artist book-sculpture just in time for her solo show called Work in Progress 2015-19 at the Haugesund 2019 AVTRYKK exhibition. This very special book-sculpture, which invaded the gallery with its strong standing paper and bright colour palette, attracted a lot of attention. Anda admits that she might have been inspired by the Touching Landscape course she attended at Tou Trykk in 2018. "This course was like a boost of inspiration that opened my mind to completely new possibilities", Anda explains.
Anna Roos, Work in progress 2019, monotypes, Transparent soy based ink, pigment from green earth and carbon black
Contribute to a sustainable future - Anna Roos
"I have strong difficulties justifying making art that is not environmentally safe", Anna Roos states. However, at Tou Trykk she found both colleagues and management that are taking environmental issues seriously. Roos is now attending Tou Trykk on a yearly basis. This arrangement fits perfectly since she is working with a time-consuming research project with two main tasks that include experimenting with environmental friendly ink and hand made paper from plants. Her goal is to find printmaking processes, material and techniques using products that can be released back to nature with as little negative impact as possible. She is building an archive containing the printed results of experimenting with "ink" made of for example rice glue and coal dust for shades of black. Another method is using different oils from plants and natural coloured pigments. Her experiments and archive also include different ways to produce paper that is durable, yet compostable. Roos believes that Tou Trykks biggest strength is that it is a good place to work even for a longer period of time. Here she finds room and time for making her slow pace art and research.