Open Studio
2 - 8 November 2023 
Photo by Amber Azcorra-Dahl

Join us at Open Studio in Toronto for a showcase of recents prints made in collaboration with William Kentridge based on his theatrical project,

The Great Yes, The Great No. 

​

​

Exhibition:  3 - 7 November 2023, 1 - 3pm
Feature Wall exhibition at Open Studio: William Kentridge The Great Yes, The Great No

​

Public Event: Saturday, 4 November 2023, 1-3pm

Jillian and Brendan will present a series of prints on exhibition at Open Studios and will be available for drop-in conversations about the work and their collaborative printmaking process.

​

VIP Event:  By Invite. Thursday, 2 November 2023, 5 - 7pm

In this talk and preview evening, Master Printer Jillian Ross will discuss how collaborative print projects come into being and delve into working relationships with artists like William Kentridge. Ross will also describe photogravure and photopolymer, the foundational techniques used in the making of the prints on show.  

​

By appointment: Please email brendan@jillianrossprint.com to see if we can meet up by appointment. 

​

​

About the talks

In 2024 in Aix-en-Provence, France, William Kentridge will be presenting a new theatrical production titled The Great Yes, The Great No. The production follows a boat trip from Marseille to Martinique – a small island that was an important site for many well-known figures including Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, André Breton and Josephine Baker. Using the potential of the boat as a metaphor for power, trade and migration, the production will draw on many of the processes and methodologies that have become central to Kentridge’s work.

Jillian Ross has been working closely with Kentridge since February 2023 to develop a new print series in response to this stage production. Ross will be showing these working proofs at Open Studio between the 2nd and the 7th of November through a series of talks and presentations.

The prints are jungle-like scenes, which began as ink drawings and collages from one of the many backdrops of The Great Yes, The Great No, and are layered with insightful texts that relate to many of the production’s themes.

One of the prints, at 55” x 63”, is too large to make as a single print and is, therefore, made from 12 overlapping prints, which are tabbed and pinned together to form the final artwork. Techniques used in the development include photogravure, photopolymer, drypoint, aquatint, handpainting and chine collé, and the work is printed on gampi, kitakata papers, Hahnemühle and found dictionary papers.

A similar large-scale print by Kentridge and Ross titled The Old Gods Have Retired was co-published with Jillian Ross Print and David Krut Projects in 2022. It forms part of the Studio Life Gravures series, which gives insight into Kentridge’s studio practice. Some of the smaller prints from this series will also be shown at Open Studio.

Both these print projects, created in collaboration between Ross and Kentridge, involved multiple studios and skilled technicians to develop from beginning to end. Studios include the printmaking department at the University of Alberta (photogravure experts Steven Dixon and Luke Johnson) in Edmonton, Cone Editions (photopolymer expert Nathanael Kooperkamp) in Vermont, the team at David Krut Workshop (Sbongiseni Khulu, Kim-Lee Loggenberg-Tim, Sarah Judge and Roxy Kaczmarek) in Johannesburg with Ross and Kentridge in studio resolving the prints to a finished state.

The importance of collaborative printmaking is highlighted throughout this process of making and co-publishing from conception all the way through to the editioning of the final print. Included in this life-cycle are platforms such as Open Studio, which help showcase and demonstrate this way of working through exhibitions, educational talks and programs.