IFPDA Ink Miami 2021, at the Dorchester Hotel ( Miami Beach) is always a fair with substance and diversity. There are print artists who also work as painters. There are world renowned artists sharing wall space with little known young artists. You will also see a smattering of the likes of George Braque and Man Ray tossed in for measure. There are not many photos here and that is because MANY of the pieces in the fair are behind glass and in this context that makes them difficult to photograph. This is just a sampling of work that you can see online where you register for tickets (Ink is free but you need to register for tickets in advance). The fair closes at 3 p.m. Sunday December 5.
One of the most impressive pieces at ANY fair in 2021 is Donald Teskey's Pharos, a carborundum print of significant size shown by Stoney Road Press (Dublin). If you didn't know better you would not think this piece was a print. It seems more like a painting.
David O’Donoghue, co-founder of the fine art press, says that these massive sized prints were a project conceived during the pandemic. See? Some good came of this mess!. O’Donoghue says that the process to create these prints is physically and mentally taxing and therefore when they work on them they only do it two days a week. When you see this , and you should , you will see how thick the result is.
It is magnificent work that is in an edition of 40 costing $9750.
"The really interesting thing is we'd begun to work on projects with all these people and Covid hit but because we worked with them before we were able to do things on Zoom and by phone or through the mail," she says. "They are very familiar with our printers and studio. We didn't bring anyone in but they'd been to Tandem so they knew what was possible. We'd do the proofing and send things to them. It worked out well. It wouldn't have been possible to do that with a new artist."
Work by Alison Saar is always unique and unmistakable. Below are two of the pieces shown at the fair--Congolese Resistance (2021) and Wrath of Topsy (2021). As you will notice these are not typical "prints." The former is screen print and acrylic spray paint on an aluminum tin. The latter is screen print on found cotton and seed sacks with sewn edges and grommets.