Amy Cousins: "All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75" (2015)

The winner of the curator's choice award, Amy Cousins' All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75, is currently on display at Illinois State University Galleries in Normal Illinois. The piece is part of the International Juried Print Exhibition, the exhibition will be on display until October 16, 2016. Cousins is an interdisciplinary artist from Houston, Texas who currently lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She holds a Master's of Fine Arts in Printmaking degree from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Amy Cousins
"All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75"
Serigraph, paper, buttons, wood, & foam - 2015

Amy Cousins' piece All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75 was a stand out from the rest of the exhibition. The piece suggested a powerful and controversial essence to it. As I scanned the piece I felt as if the headers of the news were yelling out to me in disarray. The use of the intolerant topics in large bold print crumpled and contorted from the buttons makes it challenging to see at first, but that only helps you by pulling your eye closer to the piece and force you to read the headers. Once you realize what the headers are saying and what they are portraying, depending on your point of view, you were probably agitated. On the other hand, there are furniture, theater, and lingerie ads.

My particular assessment of Amy Cousins' All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75 is drawn two ways. I am very intrigued by the way the headers show one side of society today and the advertisements show the other side of society. What I mean by these two sides is that society today is corrupted with dreary and bleak headlines we see today in the news (headers on the piece), and the other side is what we are distracted by (ads on the piece) and how easy it is for society today to brush off the issues in the world and get engulfed in their own muse's.

But away from the deep emotion, this piece is very unique for the exhibit is was presented in. The piece sat in the middle of the wall surrounded by other pieces in the exhibition, but what made me walk to it before any other piece was that it was protruding out of the wall. Behind the piece is a foam base overlapped with paper which gives it the lift off of the wall. The other interesting parts are the wood buttons that push through the front of the work and distort the the words/images. From afar the piece looks stiff on the wall but when you get close you can see the corners of the serigraph moving with the subtle breeze in the gallery. Overall the medium of the piece assists the intense message it portrays, but neither factors take away from one another, the piece is in perfect unison.

Amy Cousins 
"All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75"
Serigraph, paper, buttons, wood, & foam - 2015