[UN]BOUND IS AN EXHIBITION CURATED BY CURTIS JONES, PRINTMAKING INSTRUCTOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA. IT IS COMPRISED OF INSTALLATIONS BY LAURA BERMAN (KANSAS CITY, MO), TIM DOOLEY AND AARON WILSON (CEDAR FALLS, IA), JOHN HITCHCOCK (MADISON, WI), EMILY ARTHUR (ATLANTIC BEACH, FL), JENNY SCHMID (MINNEAPOLIS, MN), AND CURTIS JONES (NORMAN, OK). THE ARTISTS EMPLOY PRINTMAKING AS A FOUNDATION FOR THREE-DIMENSIONAL INSTALLATIONS AND MULTI-MEDIA WORK, STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN THE TRADITIONAL EXPECTATIONS OF THEIR CRAFT AND THE FORMAL EXPECTATIONS OF THE CONTEMPORARY ART WORLD.

"In organizing [Un]Bound, I sought fellow printmakers whose work embodies this spirit of Experimentation and whose creative processes don’t necessarily end at the press. As a group, Printmakers have their own language, their own sensibilities, and their own way of organizing thoughts and actions. This is what makes “printstallation” (as those in the print world refer to it) its own genre. It is defined as much by the highly skilled and expertly practiced production methods these artists have spent their lives mastering, as it is by the less familiar and often uncomfortable realm of inventing new ways to situate and contextualize the product of that skilled labor. As representatives of this genre, the artists in this show routinely make a practice of stepping out of the confines of their training to create their own language and find the uniqueness of their voice. Beyond this, there is no overt theme that binds [Un]Bound. I specifically approached these artists because I admired their work and knew that each of them would bring a unique and powerful voice. The genre is the idea here. My hope is that the exhibition reads like a collection of short stories coming to life -- stories wrestling themselves from the flat sheets of paper trying to contain them."

- Curtis Jones, Curator and Contributing Artist