Proof Testing: The PrintLab Artist Residency at Brandywine Workshop and Archives
Proof Testing presents the outcomes of the PrintLab Artist Residency (2025–26), a collaborative initiative between Brandywine Workshop and Archives (BWA) and eight interdisciplinary artists working at the forefront of contemporary printmaking.
Expanding on BWA’s Visiting Artist Residency Program, PrintLab enabled artists to experiment with both traditional and emerging processes—including photolithography, woodcut, CNC routing, laser cutting, phototransfer, and animation. Through these techniques, artists explored themes of ancestry and memory, identity and mythology, diaspora, and survival.
The exhibition features eleven works and nine printing blocks created through PrintLab by El Anatsui, Lavett Ballard, Albert Chong, Willie Cole, Kakyoung Lee, Delita Martin, Jocelyn Akwaba Matignon, and Didier William. Select works from earlier residencies are also included, offering insight into how artists extend and evolve their printmaking practices over time.
By presenting finished prints alongside working materials, Proof Testing reveals the experimental processes behind production and highlights PrintLab as a site of collaboration, innovation, and material exploration.
Organized in partnership with Brandywine Workshop and Archives, the exhibition coincides with PrintLab: Material Futures on view at BWA. PrintLab is supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Curated by Michelle Donnelly, Evelyn and Will Kaplan Curator of Twentieth Century Art and the John Rhoden Collection
Featured Artwork: Delita Martin (b. Conroe, TX, 1972), The Little Rootkeeper, 2025. Photolithograph with hand-applied ink on paper, 31 ½ x 24 ½ in. Collaborative printer: Justine Ditto (BFA, PAFA, ’17). Brandywine Workshop and Archives. © Delita Martin.
Featured Artists & Works
- El Anatsui
- Lavett Ballard
- Albert Chong
- Willie Cole
- Kakyoung Lee
- Delita Martin
- Jocelyn Akwaba Matignon
- Didier William
Includes two prints from 2018, demonstrating how two of the participating artists built on their previous BWA residencies. By placing finished prints alongside working materials, Proof Testing illuminates how PrintLab served as an incubator for experimentation and innovation.
About the Brandywine Workshop and Archives (BWA)
Founded in 1972 as the Brandywine Graphic Workshop in the Spring Garden neighborhood of North Philadelphia, Brandywine Workshop and Archives (BWA) is a non-profit art institution that has broadened opportunities for BIPOC and emerging artists to create limited edition prints, often for the first time. BWA preserves and promotes the art of fine art printmaking by providing a space for the exploration of traditional, contemporary, and innovative printing technologies. With a clear focus on collaboration between artists and printers, BWA serves as a portal to global cultural perspectives and audiences through easy access to its art collections and learning tools. BWA strives to educate, inspire, and build broad, inclusive communities through its artist residencies, exhibitions, collections, public programming, and mentoring programs that spur creative expression and offer career pathways in the field of visual arts.
EXHIBITION SUPPORT
Proof Testing is organized in partnership with Brandywine Workshop and Archives. A concurrent exhibition, PrintLab: Material Futures, is on view at BWA June 18–October 25, 2026.
PrintLab at Brandywine Workshop and Archives has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
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