Minneapolis based artist Bernice Ficek-Swenson is known primarily for her exploration of copper plate photogravure. Using fire as a drawing tool and water and stone as studio still life materials she has explored the elemental forces of nature in several related suites of photogravure prints and installation projects. Inspired by a long interest in geology and the natural processes of transformation, Ficek-Swenson incorporates stone, fire, water and ashes to create photographic tableaux. The North Dakota native will discuss aspects of her creative process and a mix of inspirational sources of landscape, environmental essays and memory.
Considered both a printmaker and photographer, Ficek-Swenson is a Professor at the University of Wisconsin – River Falls where she teaches printmaking. From 1980 to 1991 she was Co-Director of Land Mark Editions, a fine-art atelier in Minneapolis, MN where she collaborated with painters, photographers, sculptors, as well as printmakers.
Since 1995 she has used the 19th century process, copper plate photogravure as the main vehicle of her artistic expression. Her photogravures are in printmaking and photographic collections and she has exhibited internationally in China, France, Greece and Sweden. She has been a Visiting Professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, as well as an Artist-in-Resident at Anchor Graphics, Chicago, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada and the Athens School of Fine Arts, Greece. In the Fall, 2014 she will be an Artist–in-Resident at the University of Vera Cruz, Mexico working on a new suite of photogravures incorporating stones from historically and spiritually significant sites. Ficek-Swenson’s suite of four photogravures, Aqua Vitae, is part of the Scripps Invitational Women and Print exhibition.
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