Silly Matter

Frieda Dean

Frieda Dean moved to Chicago in 1988 and in October of that year she participated in a performance piece with J.S.G. Boggs at the Art Institute of Chicago. A 1992 national tour of her performance piece "Hat Gallery" included stops at numerous venues including the Hirschorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Dean arranged shaped organic elements on the surface of the matrix and then inked them. The impression was printed, in this case, with a single pass through the press. The plate was then cleaned off and no other impressions could be made.

In 1996 Dean joined the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, an experimental print workshop. Collagraphs and monotypes created there were exhibited in her solo shows at the Lang Gallery, McHenry County College, Chicago in January 1997 and the ADC Gallery, Bridgehampton, New York in October 1999.

Those prints featured various combinations of organic forms (such as leaves, vine tendrils, and dried seaweed), fabrics, hair, and antique wooden letterpress forms.