I just got my edition of Land and Sea’s 21st project, Overview: a box set that features 79 risograph prints by various artists. It was conceived, organized, and printed by artist Chris Duncan.

How neat to make cross-country connections: I picked up the box set from contributing artist Laura Splan, during an opening at Dose Project Space [great mission!] for Lauren Davies’ show. It was a great mishmash of connections spanning the Bay Area (Chris, Lauren, plus contributing peers like Sarah Hotchkiss, Genevieve Quick, Kelly Lynn Jones, Aaron Harbour, Val Imus, and many more).

Risograph prints have a beautiful tonal quality. Chris picked out a nice, toothy, heavyweight paper to print on. Each piece has heft to it, and could easily (literally) stand on its own on a tilted shelf. In other words, they feel like prints, not posters.

Many of the artists created abstractions in black ink, and others explored riso’s odd, saturated palette of Sunkist orange, cobalt, and vibrant green. A very light greenish parchment-grey is fascinating. The back of each print is flooded with a repeated text, adding a cohesive element.

I love how my piece came out:

Irrational Exuberance flags, two color risograph.

These are designs based on the Irrational Exuberance Flags series, but miniaturized, so you can cut them out and make a set of mini flags of your own.

And here are a few of my favorites:

Luke Fischbeck, two color risograph print, various renderings of possibly happy/sad faces, made all the more fractured and interesting with slight offsetting.

Tucker Nichols’ pink and blue risograph print. I think it’s a trophy and some flowers. So exuberant! I love it.

Lee Hunter, one-color riso. I’ve been thinking a lot about collective action lately.

Michael Milano’s operational two-color print, in which a single triangular design is rotated and overprinted. It’s an ingenius exploration of the medium.

Sarah Berkeley. Great reminder, and already up in my studio.

View the full portfolio, and support this independent, artist-run venture, here.