Island Press - Contemporary Print Editions and Artist Projects

Island Press - Contemporary Print Editions and Artist Projects Collaborative Print Workshop and Publisher Founded in 1978, Island Press is a research-based printmaking workshop at Washington University in St.

Louis that is committed to creating and publishing innovative prints and multiples, educating students and the broader community about print media, and advancing the printmaking field. In the context of intensive visiting artist residencies, Island Press explores the expansive theoretical and material terrain of the print. The Press is project-driven, tapping into the place where the artist's crea

tive activity and research intersect with the philosophical underpinnings of printmaking. Experimentation with new modes and technologies is a natural part of this pursuit, resulting in the creation of innovative and ambitious editions in a wide range of media. Fostering the creative relationships of the printmaking workshop is central to the Island Press mission. Visiting artists work in collaboration with the master printer, faculty, and students to create a reciprocal environment for education and research. Artists reap the benefits of numerous dedicated, energetic student assistants to help push to new levels of complexity and originality in their projects. At the same time, undergraduate and graduate students taking part in the development of artistic ideas gain access and insight into both the technical and conceptual challenges that make each artist’s project unique.

T.L. SolienNurse (blue), 2005Monoprint, sugarlift etching, collagraph, collage, handcoloring“I have attempted to invent ...
12/07/2025

T.L. Solien
Nurse (blue), 2005
Monoprint, sugarlift etching, collagraph, collage, handcoloring

“I have attempted to invent a personal and idiosyncratic visual language in which consideration of both the history of Abstraction, and the traditions of Figural Painting are of equal and essential concern. I stretch the boundaries of what has been considered viable source material from which to distill human narratives to include exploration into product iconography, vintage illustration, commercial animation and the drawings of children...” T.L. Solien

Born in Fargo, North Dakota in 1949, Solien earned a BFA from Moorhead State University, Moorhead Minnesota, and an MFA in Painting and Sculpture from the University of Nebraska.  He is the recipient of many honors and awards including the Whitney Biennial Exhibition (1983), and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship in Painting (2008). 
Solien’s work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions across the country and is included in public and private collections around the world.  

12/03/2025

INK Miami Art Fair opens today! Visit Island Press at the Dorchester, 1850 Collins, Miami Beach, suite 158. Admission is FREE.


Join us at the INK Miami Art Fair this week! Island Press will be among other exceptional exhibitors at the Suites of Do...
12/02/2025

Join us at the INK Miami Art Fair this week! Island Press will be among other exceptional exhibitors at the Suites of Dorchester, 1850 Collins Ave, Miami Beach in suite 158.

The INK Miami Art Fair is renowned for its emphasis on works on paper and is a distinctive satellite fair during Miami’s Art week. The fair is free and open to the public with an opening brunch on Wednesday, December 3rd from 9am-Noon and a Pulp Party on Thursday, December 4th from 7-9pm.

We’ll have new work and recent favorites by LJ Roberts, Mark Dion, Shaun O’Dell, Beverly Semmes, Paula Wilson, TL Solien, William Villalongo & Shraddha Ramani and more!

While visiting the Sam Fox School in October 2025, Mark collaborated with Island Press to create two letterpress edition...
11/29/2025

While visiting the Sam Fox School in October 2025, Mark collaborated with Island Press to create two letterpress editions:

Image credit #1:
On Oligarchy, letterpress, 10 x 6 inches, white ink on Sirio Black Paper, edition of 30

Image credit #2:
On Oligarchy, letterpress, 10 x 6 inches, red ink on Neenah Blotter Paper, edition of 40
 

 
from “Oligarchy facts for kids”
An oligarchy is a type of government where a small group of people holds all the power. These people might be rich, famous, well-educated, or control important parts of society like businesses, religions, politics, or the military.
 
Throughout history, people have often seen oligarchies as unfair. They usually rely on people obeying them, or sometimes on forcing people to obey. The ancient Greek thinker Aristotle used the word “oligarchy” to mean “rule by the rich.”

students had the incredible opportunity to work alongside visiting artist , who was raised in the Northwest Alaska comm...
11/22/2025

students had the incredible opportunity to work alongside visiting artist , who was raised in the Northwest Alaska community of Nome, as she brought her powerful vision to the printmaking studio. Together, they collaborated to create special “helper prints” using a fascinating technique: inking an actual boot (kamik) and making two prints from each impression—one positive, one negative. 
 
The students worked on editions of these helper prints—Light Kamik in an edition of 29 and Dark Kamik in an edition of 21, totaling 50 prints. They learned a new process while contributing to the project, and each student will receive one of the signed prints as a keepsake from this extraordinary collaboration. 
 
Moments like these are at the heart of Island Press’s mission: bringing together established artists, emerging printmakers, and our student community to push the boundaries of what’s possible in print media. Since 1978, we’ve been committed to innovation, education, and advancing the field—one print at a time. 
 
  

We are so excited to welcome Sonya Kelliher-Combs next week as the Fall 2025 Arthur and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visi...
10/22/2025

We are so excited to welcome Sonya Kelliher-Combs next week as the Fall 2025 Arthur and Sheila Prensky Island Press Visiting Artist!
She will be in residence October 27 - 31.

Public lecture: Monday, October 27, 5:30pm, Steinberg Auditorium!

Sonya Kelliher-Combs was raised in the Northwest Alaska community of Nome. Through her mixed media painting and sculpture, Kelliher-Combs offers a chronicle of the ongoing struggle for self-definition and identity in the Alaskan context. Her combination of shared iconography with intensely personal imagery demonstrates the generative power that each vocabulary has over the other. Similarly, her use of synthetic, organic, traditional and modern materials moves beyond oppositions between Western/Native culture, self/other and man/nature, to examine their interrelationships and interdependence while also questioning accepted notions of beauty. Kelliher-Combs’ process dialogues the relationship of her work to skin, the surface by which an individual is mediated in culture.

Congratulations to LJ Roberts! We’re super excited for their debut solo exhibition at Hales Gallery, New York that opene...
09/08/2025

Congratulations to LJ Roberts! We’re super excited for their debut solo exhibition at Hales Gallery, New York that opened this past week. Don’t miss it!

The exhibition title - The Q***r Mechanix of the Lands Currently Referred to as the U.S. & Canada Before & During the 54th Year of the Stonewall Era - is also the title of a two-sided print with silkscreen and photolithography that LJ made in collaboration with us at Island Press. One side of the print maps q***r and trans auto mechanic shops across the United States and Canada that were in operation from 1969 to 2023. The other side shows images and graphics from and about those shops.

We are so proud to debut this edition as part of LJ’s exhibition. Also soon to be published - a suite of related and spectacular etchings in a portfolio titled Oil Changes. Stay tuned!

Image credit (front side and back side):
The Q***r Mechanix of the Lands Currently Referred to as the U.S. & Canada Before & During the 54th Year of the Stonewall Era, 2025
Double-sided photolithography/silkscreen print
56.5 x 75.6 cm
22 1/4 x 29 3/4 in
Edition of 20 plus 2 artist’s proofs

lj

***rmechanix

First two days in the studio with as our 2025 Emerging Artist Fellow!
06/25/2025

First two days in the studio with as our 2025 Emerging Artist Fellow!

The Island Press Post-Graduate Fellow works with Island Press as an assistant printer, helping with production and all a...
06/05/2025

The Island Press Post-Graduate Fellow works with Island Press as an assistant printer, helping with production and all aspects of management of artist projects, including inventory, marketing, and communications. This fellowship is open to BA, BFA, and MFA graduates of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

For more information, find the link in our bio!

Mia Pons will be joining us for the month of June as our second 2025 Summer Intern! Mia Isabel Pons is a print media ar...
05/30/2025

Mia Pons will be joining us for the month of June as our second 2025 Summer Intern!

Mia Isabel Pons is a print media artist from Oklahoma whose ongoing work explores the body as an ephemeral vessel for memory and space. Her practice explores the intersections of printmaking, papermaking, book arts, and fiber art. Pons holds a BFA in Printmaking from the University of Oklahoma and is a current MFA candidate at Louisiana State University.

Welcome Mia!!!!

Next week we will be welcoming Casey White as one of our 2025 Summer Interns! Casey White is a printmaker originally fr...
05/30/2025

Next week we will be welcoming Casey White as one of our 2025 Summer Interns!

Casey White is a printmaker originally from Bethesda Maryland and is a recent graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She graduated with her BFA in printmaking. Casey focuses on reduction woodcuts, etchings, and screen prints, examining imaginary worlds and unconventional mediums.

What a treat to have EJ Hauser at Island Press this week as the 2025 Prensky Visiting Artist! They gave a fantastic lect...
03/19/2025

What a treat to have EJ Hauser at Island Press this week as the 2025 Prensky Visiting Artist! They gave a fantastic lecture for the Sam Fox School community and have been in the trenches experimenting and working on a new print project with us and our students in the print shop.

Image:
Tangerine Dream, 2023-24
Acrylic on canvas
20 x 16 inches

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Sam Fox School Of Design And Visual Arts, Washington University
St. Louis, MO
63130

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