Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Pagus, 12 x 12, and Pluto

This summer/fall, I participated in two portfolio exchanges, 12 x 12 and a Pluto Print Exchange. I also have new work on in an exhibition at Pagus Gallery in Norristown. 

First, the new installation, Future Ritual is included in the exhibition PRESS PLAY at Pagus Gallery. This exhibition includes print-based works by artists Marc Blumthal, Sarah Bourne Rafferty, Marianne Dages, Michael Kowbuz, Lauren Pakradooni, and Stacy Rosende. 

:: Marianne Dages, detail of the installation Future Ritual, 2015 ::

The exhibition, curated by Lisa Sylvester, looks at the varied ways in which contemporary artists work in printmaking, and at how play and experimentation with process and materials shape meaning and provoke new questions for the artist to grapple with.

Pagus Gallery 
October 1st – November 13th 2015
619 W. Washington St.
Norristown, PA 19401

12 x 12, curated by Trevor Powers, is an artists' book/zine swap including the work of six Massachusetts and six regional/national artists that considered the number twelve in one way or another.I contributed An End, an eight page folded letterpress book that considers references time and endings. The 12th hour.

The text reads, She is the color of black burning fire and of things which have come to an end.

The image used over and over in the book is of a mirror in the process of shattering.


:: 12 x 12 box ::


:: Bottom Center, Marianne Dages, An End, 3.875” x 6.25”, 8 pages ::

The other exchange was print based, and the theme of the exchange, the planet Pluto. For this a wrote a text titled Preparation Ceremony using the Orphic Hymn to Pluto as source of ideation. The text has a futuristic tone to it, and it written like a letter from one entity to another...

My dear receiver,
It is later in life
I have accessed a powerful sequence
where the end is not a color
It makes me feel humble and chthonic
I am heavy with knowledge
like fruit
I am so secure...


The print is a 3-color letterpress monoprint and text. 

:: Marianne Dages, Preparation Ceremony, Letterpress on paper, 9" x 9", 2015 ::