Press Release:

Throughout her time at Lafayette College, one thing has remained constant for Tori Schoen, her work at the Experimental Printmaking Institute. Through this work, Schoen has had the opportunity to be exposed to, and work with, a variety of fellow students, professors, and professional artists in a variety of printmaking mediums. This variation in style and technique has led her to focus on the process of creating art often over the substance of the piece. 

​

The current exhibition focuses on the images of a banana and an apple core. These simple, mundane objects are given new life and iconographized due to the size and repetition in which they are presented. By exhibiting her images in repetition, Schoen mimics the constant and continuous repetition required by the screen printing process. Schoen feels that the process and experience of creating a piece is almost of greater value than the finished product. 

By interweaving the images together, Schoen gives a sense of partnership to Apple Core and Banana. While Banana stays the same throughout the pieces, each Apple Core is different as the green streaks decrease in number as the pieces are viewed from left to right. 

​

Schoen is interested in the connections the viewer forms from the images of these ordinary objects. While apples and bananas are two of the most basic fruits representing, A and B in the alphabet they also start to take on a new form in our gendered society. The banana is typically recognized as a phallic symbol and in that context the apple core begins to take on a feminine symbol which can be drawn all the way back to the story of Adam and Eve.