Galerie Lelong artist, Kate Shepherd, and master printer, Luther Davis, have collaborated together since 1997, yielding several print projects each year. On view in New Prints and Editions at Galerie Lelong are News and Corita’s Sister, works in the format of "protest posters" which were started in 2007 when Shepherd wanted the printing process itself to dictate infinite color interactions. Using a set of screens that she repositions between successive layers of ink, Shepherd structures compositions that suggest layered space. The earliest protest posters were monochromatic, and later series incorporated a variety of brilliant hues. Davis’s current printmaking studio is part of the new Powerhouse Arts soon to open in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Kate Shepherd (b. 1961, New York City) is known for her richly colored paintings built with layers of monochromatic enamel. Chief among Shepherd’s concerns is the relationship of her paintings to their environs; the various reflective surfaces establishing a spatial discourse across the panel, the viewer, and the gallery space. In her decades-long exploration of perspectival space, Shepherd has most recently defined these forms through difference in textures, rather than with her signature fine lines. She interrupts the glossy quality of the enamel, sanding large areas down to produce velvety fields that show pentimenti of color and faint lines of obliterated brushstrokes. This method results in forms that hold a gleaming, reflective surface, which allows the viewers to see their own reflections and also guards the intimate image from view. Joined wood panels, connoting the architecture for which the paint is meant, are the base of the paintings. The artist’s oeuvre also encompasses works on paper, which examine her constant evolution of the exploration of primary, secondary, and tertiary color.
Luther Davis is the Master Printer and Director of the Powerhouse Arts Print Program. Luther teaches printmaking at Parsons School of Design and The Cooper Union. He was the co-founder of Fourth Estate, a fine art publisher focused on producing limited editions with emerging artists, and from 1999-2016 he was the Master Printer and Director of Axelle Editions, a fine art print atelier specializing in screen printing that produced over 300 editions a year with more than 100 artists.