Take a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process of a unique printmaking collaboration.

Artists Katia Santibañez and James Siena join publisher Mae Shore to discuss their joint printmaking process and the creative partnership behind a striking series of collaborative prints—an eight-month exchange of carving, printing, and decision-making that fused their distinct styles into four shared works. Working in shifts, the artists built each layer in a process likened to a game of chess, where every move was calculated and final. Fourhand Choker, one of these prints, is now part of the Library’s permanent collection and featured in the current exhibition Dynamic Duos: The Art of Working in Pairs.

This talk is presented in connection with Dynamic Duos: The Art of Working in Pairs, on display in the Celeste Gottesman Bartos and Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos Exhibitions Gallery at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building through August 2, 2025.

To join | Please register for an In-Person Ticket. Doors will open around 1:30 PM. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form 30 minutes before the program.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Katia Santibañez is an American artist, born in 1964 in Paris, France. She was trained in Microbiology before earning her BFA in 1990 at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Her work has been collected internationally and is in both private and public collections including the High Museum of Art, GA; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, NY; Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, France; Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, MA; The Morgan Library and Museum, NY, amongst others. She has been in residencies at Yaddo, NY; Casa Wabi, Mexico; The Albers Foundation, CT; Sitka, OR; and Civitella Ranieri, Italy. Santibañez lives and works in New York City and the Berkshires.

Mae Shore is the owner and printer of Shore Publishing located in the historic Hudson Valley. Shore Publishing was started in 2014 to use traditional printmaking techniques for new ideas in art. Collaborative printer Shore worked for Dick Solomon at Pace Prints (starting out under printers Ruth Lingen and Bill Hall) for over a decade before opening her own workshop to collaborate with emerging and established artists to create original prints which are hand-printed in very limited editions with the direct involvement of the artist. Each print is signed and numbered by the artist in pencil. Shore Publishing exhibits and sells the prints it produces in art fairs and curated shows at Cheymore Gallery which adjoins its studio on Route 17 in Tuxedo Park, NY. Shore Publishing prints are in the collections of The New York Public Library, The Cleveland Clinic, the Whitney Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, The Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, Detroit Institute of Arts and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Shore Publishing is a member of the International Fine Print Dealers Association.

James Siena is celebrated for his inimitable process of creating intricate abstractions that have situated him firmly within the trajectory of contemporary American art. His practice is driven by self-imposed, often cryptic sets of rules coined as “visual algorithms.” His oeuvre often references diagrams, complex puzzles, labyrinths, and mapping. Siena’s inward meditations actively engage traditions of pattern and mark-making in an ongoing exploration of scale, materiality, and interaction of color. Maneuvering across a diverse range of mediums, including painting, sculpture, drawing, lithography, etching, and woodcuts, his work has placed him firmly within the canon of contemporary American art.

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ACCESSIBILITY

In-Person | You can request a free ASL (American Sign Language) interpretation or CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation) captioning service by emailing your request at least two weeks in advance of the event: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template. This venue is fully accessible to wheelchairs.

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Courtesy of Katia Santibañez and DC Moore Gallery, New York
Courtesy of Mae Shore
Courtesy of James Siena and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY