UIC Gallery 400 40th anniversary

I’m Speaking combines an edition of 17 watercolor woodcuts and a film to create a multilayered, colorful, and complex work. In keeping with her usual practice, Selina Trepp has combined different media in her printmaking. The geometric motifs in the background, which are based on Graubünden sgrafitto facade decorations, among others, were printed using the classic woodcut method with oil paint. The colorful, watery forms of the figure, on the other hand, result from traditional Japanese mokuhanga woodblock printing, in which watercolors are applied by hand to the wood panel, and break with the rigor of classical woodblock printing through their painterly flow. An integral part of the edition is its animation. Trepp designed the individual prints in such a way that the mouth of the figure visually reproduces the different syllables of the sentence “I’m speaking” in each case. The use of stop-motion to breathe life into her works is characteristic of Trepp’s oeuvre.

Trepp received a MFA from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2007.

Selina Trepp (Swiss/American b.1973) is an artist researching economy and improvisation. Finding a balance between the intuitive and conceptual is a goal, living a life of adventure is a way, and new perspectives are a result. She works across media and space; combining performance, installation, painting, and sculpture to create intricate setups that result in photos, drawings, and animations. In addition to the studio-based work, Selina is active in the experimental music scene. In this context, she sings and plays the videolah (her midi-controlled video synthesizer) creating projected animations in real-time as visual music. She performs with a varying cast of collaborators and as one-half of Spectralina.