IFPDA Print Fair: Park Avenue Armory, New York

For the 2026 IFPDA Fair, Heather Gaudio Fine Art will present two distinct printmaking collaborations by gallery artists Simona Prives and Kathleen Kucka.

New York-based artist Simona Prives will partner with pioneering master printmaker Dan Welden and print studio Brooklyn Editions to produce a new suite of works that merge traditional and alternative printmaking techniques. The series will combine intaglio, soft ground etching, solar plate, and archival pigment printing, resulting in intricately layered imagery that bridges the organic and the man-made.

In these prints, maps, topographical patterns, construction plans, and references to both historical and contemporary locations intertwine to form intricate new terrains rendered in nebulous, atmospheric compositions. Prives' dreamlike landscapes, imbued with elusive open-ended narratives, will be released in small, varied edition numbers. Each impression will then be individually collaged by the artist.

Simona Prives holds an MFA from Pratt Institute and currently serves as an Associate Professor at the City University of New York. She has participated in numerous residencies and fellowships, including Yaddo, Art Cake, the Harvestworks New Works Residency, a Pollock-Krasner-sponsored residency at Byrdcliffe, Vermont Studio Center, the Santa Fe Art Institute Thematic Residency, and the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica di Venezia. She also awaits an upcoming fellowship at The Helen Wurlitzer Foundation.

Dan Welden is an internationally recognized artist, master printmaker, educator, and pioneer whose more than five decades of work have left an indelible mark on contemporary printmaking. He is the inventor of the Solarplate technique, a non-toxic, photopolymer-based process that introduced a safer, more sustainable alternative to traditional etching. Over his career, Welden has collaborated with many of the most significant figures in modern and contemporary art, including Willem and Elaine de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Motherwell, Jim Dine, Lynda Benglis, Dan Flavin, Eric Fischl, Kiki Smith, David Salle, and Kurt Vonnegut.

Brooklyn Editions, an artist-run fine-art print studio based in Brooklyn, is led by accomplished photographer and master printer Stephen Gross, along with Maya Filmeridis, Creative Director & Production Manager, and Martin Czajkowski, Digital Imaging Specialist & Studio Manager. The studio specializes in hybrid and experimental methods, combining layered digital processes, mixed media, and precise analog techniques.

In collaboration with Heather Guadio Fine Arts, Welden and Brooklyn Editions bring their expertise to an edition created with artist Simona Prives, merging pioneering analog printmaking with innovative approaches to hybrid printing to create a dynamic dialogue between traditional and contemporary processes.

Kathleen Kucka is a New York and Connecticut-based artist collaborated with printmaker Janis Stemmermann in the Summer of 2025 to create a new group of monoprints.  This is the third print project the artist has completed with Russell Janis Studio. The prints are created using a canvas stencil as the matrix which is then mounted on a mylar relief and inked with oil. Printed on Hahnemühle Copperplate paper, each print measures 19 x 15 inches (sheet size); 13 ½ x 8 inches (plate size.)  The prints are an extension of Kucka's explorations of materials and techniques, visually creating geometric patterns, systems and other abstract imagery.  The gallery will present the canvas matrix alongside its corresponding print, each impression becoming a narrative of the process.

Kucka holds an MFA from Hunter College and a BFA from Cooper Union. She has been the recipient of several grants and residencies including Vermont Studio Center, The Nancy Ashton Memorial Fund Award, The Alternative Worksite, the Bemis Foundation and the Change Grant. She has also been involved in several curatorial projects, most notably as the Principal and Director of Furnace - Art on Paper Archive, an exhibition space that has supported and promoted works on paper and prints in Falls Village over the past five years.

Kucka's works are in many notable private and public collections, including The Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach; The Birmingham Museum of Art; the Weatherspoon Art Museum in North Carolina; the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul. 

Printmaker Janis Stemmermann works within ceramics, textiles, and printmaking. In 1987, she began her career as a collaborative printmaker, working as an assistant to Robert Motherwell's master printer Catherine Mosley.  

In 1992, Stemmermann set up her own press in Brooklyn, the Russell Janis Studio, enabling her to work with contemporary artists on collaborative printmaking projects.  In 2025, the printing press was moved to Sharon, Connecticut.