Pyramid Atlantic

PRESS ON: A Juried Exhibition of the Art of Letterpress from Pyramid Atlantic

On View: May 30–July 20, 2025
Jurors: Celene Aubry, Hatch Show Print, and Allison Tipton, Globe Collection and Press at MICA


Artists from all over the US, with additional participants from Canada, France, and Japan,
are featured in this exhibition that celebrates letterpress as a powerful medium for artistic expression. In ad
Jurors Celene Aubry, Hatch Show Print (TN), and Allison Tipton, Globe Collection and Press at MICA (MD) had the difficult job of selecting from over 400 entries. The resulting show features a wide range of formats, including artist books, work on fabric, vinyl, and paper. The content ranges from political to inspiration
To accommodate the size of the exhibition, Pyramid is utilizing newly opened space within its facility. The additional space is currently in a planning phase for future use, but the Pyramid team is very excited to have an extra large gallery to showcase the Press On works.

Letterpress printing dates back to Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of a printing press with movable type in the 1450s. Letterpress printing remained commonly used until the 1950s, when further automation processes made offset printing more favorable. By the 1980s, letterpress machine and type ma
 
Kennedy Adams | Jody Arthur | Lauren Bailey | Frank Baseman | Andre Lee Bassuet | Molly Berkson | Rick Black | Black Rock Press with: Zach Clark, Jayna  Conkey, Josh Dannin, AB Gorham, Tanya  Gutierrez, Meghan Pohlod, Kelsey  Reiman, Thea  Sizemore, Jessica  Spring, Phoebe Todd-Parrish | Sara B

Celene Aubry, Hatch Show Print:

Celene is the Director and Print Shop Manager at Hatch Show Print, one of America’s oldest surviving letterpress show poster and design shops. While the business thrives as a letterpress poster and design shop, expanded programming includes a visiting artist program, a gallery periodically show

Allison Tipton, Globe Collection and Press at MICA

Allison is a designer and letterpress printer from Baltimore, Maryland. She is the manager of the Globe Collection and Press at MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art). As a student she fell in love with printmaking while earning her BFA is graphic design at MICA and was bitten by the DayGlo l
  • Alisa Golden, Where’s Owl, 2023, Art quilt- letterpress printed on cotton
  • Aya Masumoto, Heartbeat, 2023, Letterpress artist book
  • David Wolske, Polysynthesis No. 1,   2021/22, Relief and letterpress from movable wood and metal type

Jurors’ Statement:

“Press On is a resounding, vibrant, thoughtful, poignant, and delightful statement that indeed, letterpress printing is not dead. There are more “stories” than there are artists represented on the walls at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center this summer, and I am honored to have been able to see so much incredi
As a fellow printer, used to mixing ink and making ready and cranking cranky old printing presses myself, the award winners stood out as creators whose work continues to push the medium, using familiar tools in new ways, or in the case of two of these artists, working in an additional medium or
I am humbled to have been able to view all of the work in this show, and I am certainly inspired!”

 

By Celene Aubry, Hatch Show Print and on behalf of Allison Tipton, Globe Collection and Press at MICA, June 2025


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THE REVIEWS:

Read two reviews of the Press On exhibition,  by Stephanie Rudig in the Washington City Paper and Mark Jenkins in his Substack newsletter, DisCerning Eye.

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Beautiful Animals by Jason Rigg
  • Jason Rigg
  • Beautiful Animals, 2025
  • Linoleum reduction and letterpress print
  • 11 x 9 in

"Beautiful Animals" is an exploration of the tension between existential insignificance and the profound beauty of life’s simple moments. The piece features a cow, chosen as the embodiment of the purest form of animal, gazing upwards, contemplating its own existence. This animal is both a symbol of the mundane and a creature caught in the vastness of the universe, illustrating the dual nature of our own experiences—where small, fleeting joys like a good breakfast or a kiss from someone sweet coexist with the overwhelming sense of life’s inherent insignificance. The print itself was created through a four-layer linoleum reduction, each with hand-mixed colors. The piece is further enriched with a poem I wrote in 2023, hand-set in a combination of multiple wood typefaces and three sizes of Bernhard Gothic Medium metal type from Montana State’s historic collection.