Ericka Walker (MFA ’10) Selected for the SGC International Mid-Career Award
Ericka Walker, printmaking alumna from the University of Tennessee (MFA ’10) has been selected by SGC International for the Mid-Career Award. Walker, who attended the University of Tennessee after completing her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, where she is an Associate Professor at NSCAD University.
Ericka Walker is one of the most important mid-career artists working with print media today. Based on her close examination of American and Canadian colonialism, Walker’s art draws on the vernacular histories of the early and mid-20th century posters to interrogate mythologies that have resulted in the systematic oppression of marginalized and underrepresented people. Raised in rural Wisconsin, her art is also concerned with agriculture and our relationship with the land. “The Great Experiment,” her recent series of large prints was exhibited in the Printmaking Showcase Gallery at UT last Spring. Walker’s work will be included as part of an upcoming exhibition at the Knoxville Museum of Art “Landfall Press: Five Decades of Printmaking,” December 16, 2022 – April 30, 2023.
In addition to her work as a printmaker, Walker extends her commitment to a publicly engaged practice through the painting of large-scale murals, which is a natural extension of her work as a printmaker. In all of the murals that she has completed, mentorship of emerging artists was always a significant part of the project (receiving grant funding mainly to pay them as project assistants). These mentorships are part of her efforts to build relationships with the general public who live and work in rural communities.
Her work on murals also extends to a recent project in Milwaukee commissioned by the Milwaukee Art Museum. Working with Curator of Prints and Drawings Nicki Otten, Ericka created murals in conjunction with a major exhibition of their collection of Jules Cherét’s posters. The murals were placed around the city much in the ways that Chéret’s work was pasted up in 19th Century France. They also commissioned an edition which she completed last fall with Black Rock Editions to be sold to their patrons.
Walker has exhibited her prints widely throughout North America and abroad, with her work finding homes in multiple public collections. Her work appeared recently in exhibitions at the Huron Arts Gallery, San Francisco, CA; the Civic and Cultural Center Numancia, Santander, Spain; the Novosibirsk Graphic Arts Triennial, Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Russia; and the International Print Center, NYC, NY. Walker won the Grand Prize at the 2018 Okanagen Print Triennial in Kelowna, British Columbia.
ONLINE RESOURCES:
Her website is: https://www.erickawalker.com/
Short video on her project at Black Rock Editions: https://www.instagram.com/p/CU_AZEWAJM9/
Episode 37 from the podcast Pine | Copper | Lime, March 31, 2020.
A Canadian Broadcast Corporation profile on Walker and her work is posted here: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1660365891552/