Zuzanna Dyrda (PhD) brings a variety of imaging techniques together to illuminate the conceptual possibilities of printmaking. She explores the limits of graphic matrices and print, pushing transformations through the use of unconventional substrates and techniques that combine classical printmaking with modern installation, performance and body art interpretations.
Zuzanna’s mark-making approach is not limited to traditional paper, block and press techniques used in printmaking, but includes the body and human skin as a substrate. Marks are made with the inked fingers of performance attendees, from raised plates on pillows where the artist or a performer has laid, or large, inked linoleum plates onto which artists move to directly transfer ink from body to plate. These works and the processes used to create them challenge long-held printmaking constructs, and question broadly accepted social conventions, individual experiences, memories, myths, and idioms.
More About the Artist:
Dyrda completed a BA in Cultural Studies at The University of Wrocław, Poland in 2011. In 2008, she started studies at The Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław, Poland where she received an MFA degree in graphics in 2013 and a doctoral degree in printmaking in 2017. She is now working at her alma mater as an assistant professor. Dyrda’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, including in Norway, China, USA, Spain, Canada, New Zealand. She was an artist-in residence in Art Print Residence in Spain (2021), Proyecto ́ace in Argentina (2021) and in Macushla Sanctuary Studio in Sri Lanka (2022). She was the winner of the Professor Witold Skulicz Award at the International Print Triennial in Cracow in 2018.