Artists Image Resource (AIR) is an artist run, not-for-profit print and imaging organization established in 1996 to serve as a laboratory for artists, educators and the community. AIR brings established and emerging artists together, creating an exciting and dynamic learning environment that fosters experimentation, individuality, and peer mentorship.

AIR’s mission is to integrate the creation of fine art prints with educational programs that explore the role of the artist in contemporary culture. AIR’s purpose is to support established and emerging artists by providing equipment, materials and expertise needed to make printwork while focusing on making the methods and practices of the artist, not just the finished work, more transparent and accessible to the community. AIR’s primary activities are to initiate and facilitate projects with professional artists and to create active laboratory environments where artists, students and the public interact. AIR’s fundamental interest is in how print and imaging processes are being used in broader contemporary art making practice and how these practices impact and reflect culture.

ARTISTS

AIR will show work by several artists including:

Clayton Merrell: Clayton Merrell grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela. He studied painting and printmaking at the Yale School of Art, where he earned an MFA in 1995. His work is exhibited widely, with recent exhibitions at: Slow Gallery, Chicago; the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC; Concept Gallery, Pittsburgh PA; the A+D Gallery, Chicago; the Westmoreland Museum of Art, and the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua NY.

Alisha Wormsley: Alisha B Wormsley (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer. Her work contributes to the imagining of the future of arts, science, and technology through the Black matriarchal lens, challenging contemporary views of modern American life through whichever medium she feels is the best form of expression. She is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts with longtime collaborator Li Harris, an Awardee of the Sundance Interdisciplinary grant, the Carol Brown Achievement award among others.

Patricia Bellan Gillen: Patricia Bellan-Gillen lives and works in rural Western Pennsylvania. She recently retired from Carnegie Mellon University after 29 years as a professor in the School of Art where she held the Dorothy L. Stubnitz Endowed Chair in Art. Bellan-Gillen’s paintings, prints and drawings have been the focus of over 50 solo exhibitions including venues in Washington DC, Nashville, TN, Las Cruces, NM, Albany, NY, Bloomington, IL Portland, OR, Grand Rapids, MI, Wellington, NZ and Wimbledon/London, UK.

William Fick: Bill Fick is a printmaker who lives and works in Durham, North Carolina. He is currently a Lecturing Fellow at Duke University in the Department of Art, Art History and Visual Studies. Fick’s work can be found in the collections of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; The New York Public Library and the Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University. In 1993 Fick was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artist Fellowship and is also the director of Supergraphic Print Lab, a creative art studio dedicated to the promotion of printed matter.

Vanessa German is an American sculptor, painter, writer, activist, performer, and poet based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. German is an activist, addressing problems like gun violence and prostitution. Her work is held in numerous permanent collections, including the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; and has been reviewed by Sculpture and discussed in The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, and on NPR's All Things Considered. She was a 2015 recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Grant.

Ricardo Ruiz: Ricardo Vicente Jose Ruiz maintains a multidisciplinary practice rooted in drawing in order to engage oral traditions of storytelling and superstition. Ricardo's work reflects on the ability of allegory to make connections within contemporary society and earlier cultures. Ricardo was born in Corpus Christi, Texas and has exhibited throughout North America, France, and Germany.

Gavin Benjamin is a multifaceted artist who combines original analog photography and appropriated images with collage, paint, and varnish to create rich and luxurious works that call back to baroque traditions while incorporating elements of current culture to provoke, critique, and explore. Born in Guyana, South America and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Early on Benjamin worked as an intern for the legendary portrait photographer, Arnold Newman. and worked as a photographer and designer at Kenneth Cole productions, Esquire Magazine, Hachette Filipacchi Media, and Good Housekeeping magazine. Benjamin investigates the intersection of culture, media, politics, fashion, and design, addressing questions that (continue to) confront men of color in America today.

Mary Martin: Mary Martin’s artwork has been exhibited in art galleries and cultural institutions in Arizona, California, Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Her artwork includes ceramic, collage, printmaking, metal, and glass mediums. She is an active member and partner with several organizations and institutions including, Women of Visions, the Yan Taru Muslim Women’s Educational and Charitable organization, Muslim Women’s Association of Pittsburgh, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Pittsburgh Chapter (CAIR Pgh), The August Wilson Center for African American Culture of Pittsburgh, the Andy Warhol Museum, the Heinz History Center and others.

Jefferson Pinder: Interdisciplinary artist Jefferson Pinder gained national attention with the exhibition Frequency at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 2006. This show featured his Car Wash Meditations, a short video of a car rolling through a carwash to the music of Nas’ “Made You Look,” while explosive colors of soap manifest as action painting on the screen. The combination of sound and image is set against a profile of the artist seated in the car. In this and all his work, Pinder applies his knowledge of music, imagery, and performance to address complex issues of race, ethnicity, and class.

Other artists whose work will be available during the show include:

Edward Eberle

Ian Short

Jacob Lang

James Duessing

Jay Ryan

Burton Morris

John Lysak

Judy Barrie

Kathleen Mulcahy

Nick Bubash

Susanne Slavik

Tim Kaulen

Tina Brewer

Mary Hood

Kim Beck

Joe Lupo

Mat Daly

John Ritter

Rick Grebanis

Claudia Giannini

Hiroki Otsuka

Arnie Svenson

Glenn Kaino

Delanie Jenkins

Nick Bubash

Michael Loderstedt

Craig Lucas

Leslie Golumb

Michael Morrill

John Pusateri