MATERIAL INQUIRY, HANDMADE PAPERWORKS
MATERIAL INQUIRY: Handmade Paperworks, Co-Curated by Veronica Pham and Mary Hark
Ruth Davis Design Gallery, Nancy Nicholas Hall, June 1-6, 2025 - in conjunction with the College Book Arts Association Conference in Madison, Wisconsin
The Design Studies MFA program has consistently drawn artists and designers working within the expansive area of Fiber and Material Studies. With mentorship from Professor Mary Hark, the following artists bring a textile sensibility to hand papermaking within their practice, through their rising professional and graduate school experience. Additionally, several artists represented have been contributors to our program. The works in this exhibition consider ways in which handmade paper is both a traditional and experimental textile medium for interdisciplinary exploration. Artists Represented: Noa Rickey, Mariah Moneda, Lars Shimabukuro, Heather Kohlmeier, Henry Obeng, Maria Wood, Hannah Bennett, Kelsey Voy, Kate Morrick, Veronica Pham, Mary Hark.
Co-curator’s note: Material Inquiry, Handmade Paperworks
Published in the Hand Papermaking Magazine, July 2025 quarterly newsletter
Veronica Y Pham
The Design Studies MFA program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Human Ecology has consistently drawn artists and designers working within the expansive area of Fiber and Material Studies. The following artists in the exhibition bring a textile sensibility to hand papermaking within their practice through their rising professional and graduate experience alongside the mentorship of Mary Hark, professor in the Design Studies department and the co-curator in this exhibition. The exhibition was exhibited alongside the College Book Arts Association Conference which was held this year in Madison, Wisconsin.
Artists represented include Hannah O’Hare Bennett, Esther Cho, Mary Hark, Kristin Klingman, Heather Kohlmeier, Kate Morrick, Mariah Moneda, Henry Obeng, Veronica Pham, Noa Rickey, Lars Shimabukuro, Kelsey Voy, and Maria Wood. Each artist’s work in this exhibition consider ways in which handmade paper is both a traditional and experimental textile medium for interdisciplinary exploration. Works range from
Upon seeing the exhibition, you are greeted with Noa Rickey’s enormous paper sculpture wedged between the gallery glass windows. Entangled and somewhat disembodied, the viewer may feel the uncomfortableness of the sculpture. Rickey’s work talks about the public scrutiny they often feel as a queer body showcasing also their technical expertise in sewing on paper. In the exhibition, you will see also Kelsey Voy and Heather Kohlmeier’s larger than life size paper garments. This time, these garments talk about the ephemerality of paper as textiles to be worn speaking to memory and materiality.
The exhibition featured artist books in many different forms. Each iteration always draws back to the unique textile sensibility of the artist. Hannah O’Hare Bennett explores paper pulp and traditional beadwork both in two-dimensional forms and as an artist book, incorporating her decades long collaborative fieldwork in Ecuador with master artisans, friends, and family. The work speaks powerfully about story within fiber arts and its visual kinetic nature. Similarly, Maria Wood also works collaboratively both with adults and children to talk about care, resiliency, and healing within the Latina immigrant community.
Mariah Moneda’s work displays her photography work on paper screens showing layered banana leaves printed on handmade paper made from Philippine gampi. The sculpture, both in its image and the fiber of the paper, evokes a sense of past, present, and future of Filipino legacy and culture. Along the same thread, Ghanian-born artist, Henry Obeng, exhibits his most recent cyanotype prints from UW-Madison’s Herbarium vast special collection of plant species printed on handmade discarded Wisconsin cotton red t-shirts. The latest edition in his on-going documentation project features gold leaf on paper, exploring gold significance implored in Ghanian Kente cloth culture.
It is an honor to co-curate this exhibition alongside Mary Hark. Each one of us can say in some capacity that Mary has inspired, encouraged, and devoted herself to nurture the trajectory of our creative practices. She is always an advocate, and she is a friend. She is also, as Mary herself delightfully states upon our first meeting, colleagues in the field of hand papermaking.
photos by Mariah Moneda and Veronica Pham