Windows on Latimer

On June 7, 2024, the University of the Arts (UArts) officially closed with only one week’s warning, marking the loss of one of Philadelphia’s most historic and valued arts institutions. Students were displaced with no promise of continued education and staff were left without jobs. They found themselves subsumed within the trend of institutional closures impacting our wider art community and unexpectedly needing to chart new paths forward.  

Kelly Buruca, Isabella Kahn, Maria Kortz, Brittney Mallon, Alex Stevenson and Brielle Walton were rising seniors at UArts who have continued to make work following the school’s sudden closure. Their photographs and prints share momentary visions of identity and place, tangible anticipations of a promised future, and the collective strength needed to navigate in the wake of the unexpected.

This installation of Windows on Latimer amplifies the enduring voices of the students who have lost an integral cornerstone of their artistic education. It serves as a testament to the resilience we must continue to share as artists and art organizations.

– Alexis Finley, Bradford Intern, The Print Center
Former UArts major in Interdisciplinary Arts
Completing degree at Drexel University

Kelly Buruca (b. 2001) is from El Salvador and is a former UArts Photography major. Buruca plans to continue pursuing a degree in photography at the Tyler School of Art & Architecture, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.

Isabella Kahn (b. 2003, China) grew up in River Edge, NJ and is a former UArts Photography major and Business and Advertising Practices minor. Kahn plans to continue pursuing a degree in photography at Drexel University, Philadelphia.

Maria Kortz (b. 2001) is from Nazareth, PA and is a former UArts Illustration major and Print Media minor. Kortz plans to continue pursuing a degree in design and illustration at the Tyler School of Art & Architecture, Temple University, Philadelphia.

Brittney Mallon (b. 2003) is from Keyport, NJ and is a former UArts Illustration major and Print Media minor. Mallon plans to continue pursuing a degree in illustration at The School of Visual Arts, New York.

Alex Stevenson (b. 2002) is from Maryland and is a former UArts Photography major. Stevenson plans to continue pursuing a degree in photography at Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia.

Brielle Walton (b. 2003) is from Bucks County, PA and is a former UArts Photography major. Walton plans to continue pursuing a degree in photography at Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia.

Presented as part of (re)FOCUS.

The screenprint Enigma is characteristic of Edna Andrade’s work, which from the mid-1960s, featured precise, geometric compositions in bold colors. The resulting dynamic optical effect is known as Op Art. Andrade said, “My ideas come from organic structures, crystallography, physics, gestalt psychology and from games, patterns, puzzles and sunsets at the end of Pine Street.”

Enigma was included The Print Center’s exhibition, Women Printmakers, presented as a part of the 1974 FOCUS festival celebrating women in the arts. Though Andrade was primarily interested in the objectivity of geometry, the image recalls the female form.

Edna Andrade (b. 1917, Portsmouth, VA; d. 2008, Philadelphia, PA) studied at the Barnes Foundation, Merion, PA; and earned a BFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) and the University of Pennsylvania, both Philadelphia. She was the subject of retrospective exhibitions at Institute of Contemporary Art, PAFA and The Print Center, all Philadelphia. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions across the United States and is found in public collections including the Baltimore Art Museum, MD; Dallas Museum of Art, TX; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Metropolitan Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art, both New York, NY; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; and the Library of Congress, Washington, DC; among many others.

Gaul Street (kids in fire hydrant spray) was made spontaneously on a hot summer day. The piece is from a larger body of work, “Port Richmond,” that Partin has made since 2019. The series includes a number of portraits of his neighbors, that reveal their enduring spirit and hope. The dance of light and shadow in Gaul Street depicts the joy of children cavorting on a Philadelphia neighborhood street. It is a celebration – a simple ode to the bright tapestry of life in Port Richmond, which is situated less than a mile away from the center of the city’s opioid crisis.  

Nutini is well known for his abstract, vibrant, complex prints, which combine complicated patterns with layered color, created using a mix of hand-crafted and digital processes. The series, “Swing Low,” is the result of a unique, collaborative process spanning three centuries of technology with input from several artists.

The image features a number of linear spirals, which were generated using a 19th-century drawing apparatus called a harmonograph. This simple machine employs a pendulum to draw images as it swings. Nutini was invited to use a harmonograph in 2019, when Gerard Brown put one together for his class at Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia. After creating a number of these drawings, Nutini started to experiment with them as the basis for carving woodblocks using a digital CNC router. The collaborative process developed further when Nutini was a virtual visiting artist in 2020 at California State University, Stanislaus. Working with the head of printmaking Martin Azevedo, as well as printmaking technician Alexander Quinones and student assistant Christopher Rodriguez, component blocks for a print edition were created and printed. The team translated Nutini’s initial drawings into woodcuts with a laser engraver, which they then used to print thirty variations with little to no direction from Nutini. The blocks and impressions were shipped from California to Philadelphia, which Nutini then used to complete the works by hand-pulling unique prints.

The final images in the "Swing Low" series feature a buildup of rich layers of color and overlapping spiral lines resulting in a variety of moiré effects and unexpected imagery. The Print Center is pleased to present Swing Low, for both its exceptional presence as well as its delve into the history of technology, the creative blending of analog and digital tools, and its celebration of collaboration and chance. 

Alexis Nutini (b. Mexico City, Mexico; l. Philadelphia, PA) received a BA in fine art from St. Mary’s College of Maryland, St. Mary's City and an MFA in printmaking from the Tyler School of Art & Architecture, Temple University, Philadelphia. Nutini runs Dos Tres Press, where he publishes his own prints and develops collaborative projects with other artists. The focus of Dos Tres Press is experimentation with relief techniques through hand-carved, reduction woodblock printing combined with the digital technology of a CNC router.

Nutini was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship in Barcelona, Spain and has exhibited his work at venues in Los Angeles, CA; Manhattan, KS; Nashville, TN; Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, both PA; Seattle, WA; and St. Mary's City; as well as in Barcelona, Spain; Brisbane and Melbourne, both Australia; Rome, Italy; and Veracruz, Mexico.

The Philadelphia-based Jovin has received significant recognition early in her career, including an award from the Magnum Foundation and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. Her work combines original photography with appropriated images from her family albums to contemplate her Haitian American identity, family history, spirituality and the African diaspora. The work illustrates resistance and intergenerational trauma, as well as how the experiences of our family and our pasts are carried in our bodies.

First Communion is drawn from her series “Gwo Fanm,” which is Haitian Kreyol for ‘Big Woman.’ For Jovin, a ‘Gwo Fanm’ is strong vulnerability. A ‘Gwo Fanm’ stands out in life and stands up for the ones they love, but also endures more than their fair share of the slings and arrows the world throws at them, absorbing hurt and pain that would crush someone less resilient or determined. Jovin considers many of the women in her family as Gwo Fanm – women who have shouldered burdens beyond most people’s imaginings.

Naomieh Jovin is a first-generation Haitian-American and a photographic artist. Jovin has a BFA in Photography and Digital Arts from Moore College of Art & Design, Philadelphia, PA. She has received an award from the Magnum Foundation Fund, a Mural Arts Philadelphia Fellowship for Black Artists, has been a LensCulture Critics Choice Winner; an artist-in-residence at the Inspiration Lab, University of the Arts, Philadelphia; and was named a Fellow in the Arts by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage in 2021. Jovin’s work has been featured in The Nation and on Buzzfeed, and she has photographed for The New York Times and Vogue Italia.

Traveling throughout the United States, David Graham captures the colorful and sometimes surreal in the American landscape. He seeks out subjects that celebrate our singular freedom of expression, whether in colorful roadside attractions, idiosyncratic sculptures, or everyday people who revel in impersonating famous characters. Chronicling the American scene with this unique sensibility, Graham celebrates the creativity and dreams of the common man.

The photograph Mayfair, Philadelphia, PA, was made in the neighborhood where Graham’s father had his offices. Searching for the spirit of the area, Graham found this unique building among mostly nondescript buildings. Attracted by Graham working with his large-format, 8” x 10” camera on a tripod, the owner of the ice cream shop came out to chat. The conversation lasted long enough to allow the figure dressed in purple drapery to walk by – serendipitously matching the color of the painted bench.

This installation of Windows on Latimer is presented in conjunction with Graham’s exhibition Then/Now at the University of the Arts (December 8, 2022 – February 3, 2023) which marks his retirement from teaching photography at the University after 22 years.

David Graham (b. 1952, Abington, PA; l. De Pere, WI) received a BFA from the University of the Arts and MFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, both Philadelphia. He has had solo exhibitions at The Print Center; Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, OH; International Center of Photography, New York; and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. His work is the subject of ten monographs, the most recent is In Plain Sight, 2022. His work has appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Graham’s work is in many prestigious museum collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; The Museum of Modern Art, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Princeton University Art Museum, NJ; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA.

Bella Logachova’s series “ARtNUO (New Ukrainian Ornaments),” combines the iconography and colors of Ukrainian folk art with military symbols in digitally-constructed images to protest the war waged by Russia on Ukraine. The Print Center is proud to exhibit the work of Bella Logachova in support of Ukrainian people everywhere.

In February 2022, Russia escalated its war in Ukraine, which was ignited with its invasion and annexation of Crimea in March 2014. DNR (Donetskaya Narodnaya Respublica), made in 2014, chronicles the beginning of the armed conflict in the Donbas region of Ukraine from the perspective of the artist. It depicts pro-Russian separatists forcibly removing civilians from their homes and using them as human shields in active combat. The attackers wear black, blue and red – the colors of the Donetsk People’s Republic, which was occupied in April 2014. Today it is only recognized by the Russian Federation, Syria and North Korea. “Each work is a documentary story told by means of ornament. Wartime is difficult . . . but we need to do something, to create new things – it’s our responsibility,” says the artist.

This installation of Windows on Latimer is presented in conjunction with the Castellani Art Museum, Niagara University, Lewiston, NY, where nineteen works from the series “ARtNUO (New Ukrainian Ornaments)” are on view through July 2022 – June 2023.

Bella Logachova (b. Mariupol, Ukraine; l. Kharkiv, Ukraine) graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Art, where she currently teaches Media Arts. She is a member of the collective SOSka Group and has exhibited her work throughout Ukraine and Europe. “ARtNUO (New Ukrainian Ornaments)” received the Grand Prix at the IX International Triennale in 2015.

Prints from Bella Logachova's series “ARtNUO (New Ukrainian Ornaments)” are available in The Print Center's Gallery Store. All works are inkjet prints, 20" x 20" and in an edition of 10, available for $175. Bella Logachova will donate proceeds from the sale of these prints to support the Ukrainian war effort.

In Hannah Price's installation, Untitled, she triangulates photographs from her series: “Cursed by Night” (2012-2013) and “Semaphore” (2018). The former, which includes an image of Philadelphia’s City Hall as well as shadowy interior and exterior portraits, explores how society elides Black men with darkness, cursing them into its oblivion. The more recent series, which takes its title from a coded signal system of flag positions, examines the way identities are constructed through physical and material appearance. Price purposefully uses black-and-white photography to heighten the stark contrasts of politics and race in our everyday lives.

Hannah Price (b. 1986, Annapolis, MD; l. Philadelphia, PA) is a photographer and documentary filmmaker interested in interpersonal relationships, race politics and representations of identity. She holds a BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology, NY and an MFA from Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT. Her work has been exhibited at numerous venues including The FLAG Art Foundation, New York; Philadelphia Photo Arts Center and Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, PA, and it is in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Price became a Magnum nominee member in 2020.

In Dawn Studio (palettes on the run), we feature 14 photographs by Lisa Blas – distilled from over 4,000 – that chronicle fragments of her working process for the ongoing series "Dawn Studio,” begun during the COVID-19 pandemic. Every morning, Blas works on multiple paintings, pausing periodically to photograph their surfaces and their intersections on her worktable. Her watercolor and gouache paintings take the form of lacunae or apertures, that are at once voids and portals. Hovering between painting and photography, the images in this installation capture the intimate details of this ritualistic exercise, giving viewers a glimpse into the artist’s studio.

This installation complements the exhibition Fit to Print, on view through June 30, 2021. 

Lisa Blas (b. 1967, Burbank, CA; l. New York, NY) holds a BA in political science from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles and an MFA in painting from Claremont Graduate University, CA. She has exhibited at numerous institutions, including Marquee Projects, Bellport, NY; Ortega y Gasset Projects, Brooklyn; Gettysburg College, PA; Carriage Trade, The Emily Harvey Foundation, Kai Matsumiya Gallery, Pierogi Gallery and Tanja Grunert Gallery, all New York; as well as at Rossicontemporary, Brussels, Belgium and Musée Matisse, Cateau-Cambrésis, France. Since 2015, Blas has produced a weekly RSS feed titled “Monday’s image,” where she pairs the front page of a local newspaper with a work of art from a museum collection. In March 2021, her paintings from “Dawn Studio” were published in Effects Journal.

In Fourteen Freedoms, Dawn Kim focuses on Philadelphia’s association with ideas of “liberty” and “freedom.” This collection of images, pulled from online marketplaces like Craigslist and eBay, gives new context to these hotly debated concepts in untraditional ways and makes a humorous nod to Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 "Four Freedoms" speech and subsequent responses, including the eponymous artist-led collective. 

This installation complements the exhibition Dawn Kim: Half Rest, awarded from our 95th ANNUAL, on view through April 30, 2021. 

Dawn Kim (b. Seoul, South Korea; l. Austin, TX) examines invisible systems of power through text and image. She received a BFA from the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA and an MFA in Photography from Yale University, New Haven, CT. Kim has exhibited at numerous venues, including Luke Glanton Gallery, Amsterdam, NY; Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta; ACRE, Chicago, IL; Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT; Blackbox Gallery and Hap Gallery, both Portland, OR; and Washer Dryer Projects, Salt Lake City, UT; as well as at Para Site, Hong Kong. Kim is the 2020-21 St. Elmo Arts Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin.

David Rothenberg, who has lived in New York City for more than 20 years, is inspired by the way people interact with its landscape. In “Roosevelt Station,” he turns to his local subway in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens. In the glow of the station’s colored-glass concourse, he candidly captures people from all walks of life – from rush hour commuters and students to airport-bound travelers and panhandlers.

This installation complements the exhibition David Rothenberg: Landing Lights Park, awarded from our 95th ANNUAL, on view through April 30, 2021. The book Roosevelt Station (Perimeter, 2021) can be purchased online from The Print Center’s Gallery Store.

David Rothenberg (b. Mission Viejo, CA; l. Queens, NY) is a photographer and educator. He received a BFA from Parsons School of Design, New York and an MFA from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Rothenberg received the PHOTO 2021 x Perimeter International Photobook Prize for his forthcoming book Roosevelt Station. His work has been exhibited at and is in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, among other venues.

The Artist would like to thank the Queens Art Fund and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Greater New York Arts Development Fund for their support of the creation of this work.

Kevin Claiborne is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist whose practice crisscrosses photography and printmaking. His work examines and questions intersections of identity, environment and mental health within the Black American experience. The title of this work is excerpted from a recent poem by the artist. It refers to the system of racial classification in which anyone with even a single Black ancestor, i.e. “one drop” of Black blood, is considered to be Black. Interested in the pervasive ways in which society identifies people, Claiborne critically addresses this and other such practices is his work at large.

This installation complements the exhibition Kevin Claiborne: Before I Died I Was Invisible, awarded from our 95th ANNUAL, on view through April 30, 2021. 

Kevin Claiborne (b. Camp Springs, Maryland; l. New York, NY) holds a BS in Mathematics from the historically Black college North Carolina Central University, Durham and an MS in Higher Education Administration from Syracuse University, New York. He currently is an MFA Visual Arts Candidate at Columbia University, New York. In 2020, he had a solo exhibitions at Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York. His work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of Art, New York.

Jaime Alvarez is a Philadelphia-based artist known for “Fishtown Daily,” his ongoing photographic series of deadpan urban landscapes, as well as detail-oriented object studies. As temperatures drop this winter in Philadelphia, escape to the tropics through Windows on Latimer at The Print Center! 

For this installation, Alvarez takes us to El Yunque National Forest in his native Puerto Rico, the only tropical rainforest in the United States. Covering 28,000 acres, it is home to over 200 species of flora and fauna – some not found anywhere else in the world. These include the Coqui, a very small, loud frog that is very common in Puerto Rico, yet still in danger of extinction.

Jaime Alvarez has a BFA in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence and an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, and is in the permanent collection of Comcast and the Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, TX.

Krista Svalbonas’ site-responsive installation What Remains compiles nine black-and-white photographs of Soviet-era apartment buildings in Latvia and Lithuania, embellished with laser-cut patterns culled from traditional Baltic folk art. As a whole, the installation meditates on the concept of home and what it means to be “at home” at this time. “Ideas of home and dislocation have always been compelling to me as the child of immigrant parents who arrived in the United States as refugees,” says Svalbonas. “This history has made me acutely aware of the impact of politics on architecture, and in turn on people’s daily lived experience.” Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, our relationship to “home” has changed drastically. Svalbonas’ work reflects how these buildings – relics of the Soviet past – can be repurposed today.

Krista Svalbonas holds a BFA in Photography from Syracuse University and an MFA from the State University of New York at New Paltz. Her work has been exhibited at Howard Yezerski Gallery, Boston; ISE Cultural Foundation and Klompching Gallery, both New York; and Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City. Her work is found in the collection of the Cesis History and Art Museum, Latvia. Recent awards include a Baumanis Grant, Rhonda Wilson Award, Puffin Foundation Grant and a Bemis Center for Contemporary Art Fellowship. Svalbonas is an Assistant Professor at St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia.

Roxana Azar’s photo-based sculptural installation Projections brings a psychedelic kaleidoscope of biomorphic plant life to The Print Center’s window. It is part of a larger series of holographic photo-collages featuring botanical imagery printed on opalescent materials. The installation changes in color based on the time of day and angle of view.

To Azar, artwork is “a way to work through anxiety and create joyful moments.” In our current moment, “Surrounding myself with plants has been healing,” Azar says, “I love that people can walk past and experience the work in different ways at different times of days.” Rooted in close observation of flora in the greenhouses and gardens of the Philadelphia region and beyond, it playfully translates organic forms through manipulation and transformation of shape, color and light. “My work reimagines floral arrangements and projects what they might look like in the future.”

Inspired by science fiction, plant intelligence, anxiety and floral design, Roxana Azar produces multi-media works combining photography, sculpture and collage. Azar holds a BFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond. In addition to exhibiting nationally and internationally, Azar has been published in Mossless, Papersafe, Vice and Yen Magazine.

James B. Abbott takes us to the spectacular Cape Cod National Seashore with High Tide, Low Tide, High Tide. The three black-and-white triptychs taken on Cape Cod can transport the viewer to any special place of solitude. Abbott says, “In this new age of uncertainty, I find myself seeking solace in the memory of a place, a personal place, one that I fell in love with, have history with and tried to understand through my photographs.”

James B. Abbott is a photographer whose subjects range from Venice, Italy to the Ben Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia, from urban cityscapes to the solitude and rich natural beauty of Cape Cod. Abbott received a BFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. His work is included in many public and private collections, including the Allentown Art Museum, PA; Cranbrook Art Museum; and Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Benefit Print

Abbott has generously created a benefit edition of High Tide, Low Tide, High Tide: inkjet print, 15 ¼” x 11” (image), 17 ½” x 13” (sheet), in an edition of 25 for $300. All proceeds will directly benefit The Print Center.

"These crisis times have clarified who and what are important to me. This includes The Print Center - which must continue to educate, nourish and bring us together as a community. Please join me in offering your support!" – James B. Abbott