Biography

Christina Wrege (b1984 in Frechen, Germany) is a graduate of the Institute of Education (PGCE ART & Design 2012), the Royal College of Art (MA Printmaking 2010) and Winchester School of Art (BA Fine Art 2008). Working mainly in etching, relief print and text her work is concerned with notions of aesthetic clarity and chaos. The work herewith alternates between subtle exquisite beauty and neutral conceptualism: a quality that she also explores as a member of the artist collective The Cardiff Sessions. Recent exhibitions include Cardiff Sessions at the Sidney Nolan Trust (Wales 2013), Wrexham Print International (Wrexham 2013), Analogy (London 2012), PenPal (Cologne 2012), Stones in your Pocket (Cardiff Sessions, New York 2012) as well as a collaborative lithography project with the Cardiff Sessions at the Sydney Nolan Trust (2012). Wrege works as a teacher of art at Westminster School and as a visiting tutor at Cardiff UWIC.

Themed Panel

The Collaborative as Key Aesthetic of Contemporary Printmaking
The artist’s identity in flux appears to be a corner stone in the argument to position Printmaking at the centre of the contemporary quest. Due to collaborative practices the print as work of art is no Modernist dogma any more: it relies on the meaning-giving collaboration of viewer and maker. The object ‘print’ is an entrance to a wide kaleidoscope of meanings and intentions; it becomes a signifier. Defying formal agendas, this interconnected network is a key characteristic of the new contemporary.
Collaboration as modus operandi embraces this kaleidoscope and enables communication on multiple channels. The artist collective The Cardiff Sessions aims to operate on all channels of collaboration. Artists invited by the collective draw onto lithographic transfer paper before sending their drawing on to the next collaborator, drawn forms and lines are questions and answers (aesthetic collaboration). The final prints are made by the collective during the printing sessions (technical collaboration). Collective decision making is integral to the look of the work. Choice of paper, ink, manual labour: everything is shared. During exhibitions The Cardiff Sessions often invite the visitor to collaborate on new work. This sets up the print as a communication tool, as a generator for collaborative meaning-making (conceptual collaboration).
With the workshop at its heart Printmaking has long been regarded as an integrally communal activity. Recent developments in contemporary art however help categorise the various collective activities as technical collaboration, aesthetic collaboration and conceptual collaboration. Printmaking as process and the print as meaning-lending stimulant embody the necessary qualities for such endeavour. Printmaking may therefore be firmly positioned at the route of the contemporary quest.