Staff Reports

Brett Anderson will be exhibiting his highly elaborate, multi-color relief prints at the Brookings Arts Council Aug. 31 – Sept. 22.

Anderson taught printmaking as a visiting professor at SDSU during the 2004-2005 academic years. He received a master of fine arts degree from the University of South Dakota, where he was a former student of nationally known printmaker Lloyd Menard. He and his wife, Erika, presently live in Lincoln, Neb., where he teaches part-time.

Inspired by a long tradition of woodcuts dating to the German printmakers of the early Renaissance, his prints also reflect modern influences, including Chicago’s fanciful Pop Art movements and underground comic book artists of the 1960s and 70s.

“What I find myself most entranced with is the folly of human endeavor, our frailty and vice,” said Anderson. “I don’t view this fixation on our shortcomings as some sort of pessimistic, nihilistic indulgence; it is really an affirmation of humanity.”

Anderson said a lot of the sentiments driving his work parallel the popular fiction he enjoys. Such examples include Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Bukowski, Albert Camus, Umberto Eco and Chuck Palahniuk.

He says his work is a lot like American vacation destinations, such as Las Vegas, with elaborate and wonderful facades often concealing drawings.