Visual art department welcomes guest artist in printmaking

LAWRENCE — Considering himself a hunter and a gatherer, constantly accumulating images produced by the rapid exchange of information in his surroundings, Jered Sprecher’s work shows images that are revealed as fragments in the midst of change, destruction, redefinition and restoration. Sprecher will be a guest artist in the Department of Visual Art this week, where he will create an original woodcut print and work directly with students in the printmaking area.

Sprecher will be on campus Feb. 17-20 and will give a public lecture at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19, in Room 421 of the Art & Design Building. The lecture is free, and the public is welcome.

“Jered is primarily a painter, so we are really interested to see how he approaches printmaking,” said Michael Krueger, associate professor in visual art. “Of primary concern are his ideas and concepts; it will be exciting to see them unfold in woodcut.”

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Sprecher received his bachelor's degree in history and studio art at Concordia University and his MFA in painting from the University of Iowa. He currently lives and works in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he teaches at the University of Tennessee. His work has been exhibited at The Drawing Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Chinati Foundation, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Des Moines Art Center, Hunter Museum of Art and Espai d’art Contemporani de Castello. In 2009 he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Most recently, he was the artist-in-residence at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas.

The printmaking area in the Department of Visual Art provides a complete studio experience with regular courses in intaglio, lithography, relief and serigraphy. Students may focus in one or more medium or choose to create a hybrid print form. The program encourages mixed-media work and equally embraces traditional approaches to the print medium.

The Department of Visual Art is one of four departments in the School of the Arts. As part of the KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the School of the Arts offers fresh possibilities for collaboration between the arts and the humanities, sciences, social sciences, international and interdisciplinary studies.