Berkeley, US
Paulson Fontaine Press produces and publishes limited edition intaglio prints. Established in 1996, the press emerged from the San Francisco Bay Area’s rich tradition of fine art printmaking. Paulson Fontaine Press’s philosophy is to facilitate rather than direct an artist, creating an environment where artists can do their best work.
Pam Paulson and Rhea Fontaine have a strong shared interest in the history of American civil rights, which has influenced their publishing decisions. As a woman and minority-owned business, they have worked to amplify often underrepresented voices in the visual arts. PFP has published over 150 editions with Black Artists, and this archive was recently acquired by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.
Image:
Torkwase Dyson in the Paulson Fontaine Press studio.
Paulson Fontaine Press will present new works by the artists McArthur Binion and Torkwase Dyson along with a selection of drawings by Thornton Dial.
Binion, who is represented by Lehmann Maupin and Xavier Hufkens Gallery, infuses his minimalist works with personal ephemera. The underpinning of these colorful, etched grids was made with the musical score titled Still Standing Stuttering, which Binion commissioned from Pulitzer Prize winning jazz composer Henry Threadgill.
In Dyson’s dramatic spitbite etchings, liquidity is met with curvilinear and rectilinear shapes that speak to architecture, infrastructure and the biosphere. “Black Compositional Thought”--Dyson’s generative framework for naming and studying Black spatial liberation strategies–reveals paths towards Black freedom as well as human and environmental justice. Recently featured at Desert X as well as the Liverpool and São Paulo Biennials, Dyson is one of the most innovative and provocative artists working today.
Thornton Dial (September 28th, 1928 - January 25, 2016) was born in Emelle, Alabama. Dial’s life unfolded in tandem with institutionalized segregation and the gains of the civil rights movement. Known first for his mixed media assemblage, he began making works on paper in the 1990s. By the mid 90s, Dial had settled on a core selection of favored papers and media, including crayon, charcoal and pastel. Dial’s drawings compose the largest body of his work and chart the span of his career from the early 1990s into the 2010s.
McArthur Binion in the Paulson Fontaine Press studio.
