The Lower East Side Printshop is pleased to announce Special Editions ’09, on view at the Printshop from June 17th – July 4th, 2009. This presentation will feature new works on paper created by three recipients of the Printshop’s Special Editions Residencies: Fawad Khan, Carlos Motta, and Shinique Smith. The Special Editions Residency Program provides emerging artists with the opportunity to create an important new body of work in collaboration with master printers, fully sponsored by the Printshop. Fawad Khan’s autobiographical series of etchings, Carlos Motta’s political screenprint portfolio, and Shinique Smith’s mixed media collages are the first prints created by all three artists, and represent new directions in their own work as well as pushing the boundaries of contemporary printmaking.

FawAd Khan (b. Tripoli, Libya, 1978, lives in New York) received his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2003. Through colorful murals, installations, and intricate drawings that on first glance look playful and whimsical, Khan’s work illuminates a dark and complex political struggle with violence and identity that takes place through, on, and in public vehicles.

Carlos Motta (b. Bogotá, Colombia, 1978, lives in New York) completed his MFA at Bard College in 2003 and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program (2005-2006). Working primarily in photography and video installation, he uses strategies from documentary and sociology to engage with specific political events in an attempt to observe their effects and suggest alternative ways to write and read these histories.

Shinique Smith (b. Baltimore, Maryland, 1971, lives in New York) received her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1998, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2003. Her practice spans a range of media, from sculpture, collage, and video to painting and drawing. Smith creates colorful works that tread the lines between accumulation and loss, containment and scatter, legibility and scribble.