In the winter of 2014 I contacted Professor Vasyl Kosiv at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Lviv. Together we discussed an exhibition of student work. The plan was to invite students to produce print works that could be shipped and exhibited in Knoxville Tennessee where I was attending graduate school. During the initial stages of email correspondence and organization of the show the political situation in Ukraine was continually shifting. The mass protests in Kiev garnered international attention and inside Ukraine, Vasyl, his students, and fellow faculty members traveled from Lviv to Kiev to participate in the political demonstrations. Professor Kosiv and I decided that the theme of the portfolio should be pressure and resistance, responding to corruption and oppression with some level of optimism and constructive action. The students were left to interpret and respond to this theme the result of which is this portfolio of prints.

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The Portfolio was originally shown at Gallery 1010 in Knoxville Tennessee in August of 2014. It was again exhibited at the Drawing Room Gallery in Edmonton Alberta in December of 2015.

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I would like to extend a sincere thank you to the students who contributed their works to this exhibition, I felt very lucky to have to opportunity to host this collection of prints and to see the work being produced at the academy. 

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Thanks to Richard Skoonberg for photographing the opening.