Petrou Artist in Residence: Amos Kennedy @BookLab

A descendant of the enslaved peoples of the United States of America, after 40 years of age, Kennedy embraced his humanity and abandoned the commercial dream that defines this civilization. Unsatisfied with the illusion of a comfortable, middle-class life, Kennedy traded in his computer for a printing press and his white collar for overalls. His letterpress work raises emotionally charged questions about race, individuality, and the false narrative of this civilization.

Using traditional hand-press techniques, he “produces large editions of wildly colourful, typographically-driven posters on inexpensive chipboard stock, posters which are often so riotously layered with vibrant colors of ink as to retain a wet iridescence and tackiness years after they were printed. His working method often involves overprinting multiple layers of text... resulting in no two prints being truly identical."