Molly Berkson (2024)

Bio: I am a Chicago-based artist primarily working in printmaking, books, and handmade paper. I work as a Studio Assistant at Steracle Press, a letterpress and design studio in Chicago’s Humboldt Park, and as a Teaching Artist at Lillstreet Art Center. In April 2024, I began creating limited-edition handmade paper under the name Too Blue Press.

Previously, I taught classes at Spudnik Press, where I was a Studio Fellow in 2017-2018. Also in 2017-2018, I taught an After School Matters program for Chicago teens called Sew Stitchy. I have shown work at Baby Blue Gallery in Chicago IL, After School Special in Milwaukee WI, Femme4Femme in Chicago as part of 2nd Floor Rear, and at the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY, where I was a Studio Intern in 2016. I graduated with my BFA from Chicago's School of the Art Institute in 2015. 
My work often uses pared-down text and graphic shapes and patterns. I draw imagery (and sometimes meticulously copy) from record sleeves, gig posters, and vintage ephemera. Handmade paper from experimental fibers embeds unique texture and material memory into each sheet. I am fond of the intermingling boundaries of art, craft, and design.

I recently experienced sudden hearing loss, which has catastrophically altered how I encounter and perceive nearly everything. My work in print, paper, and books is beginning to investigate my relationship with sound and music in deeper, novel ways. Can I represent music and sound visually to depict what I cannot hear? How can I work to express sound more expansively? How do I illustrate my grief?

artist website: www.mollyberkson.com