PULSE Nightclub: 49 Elegies

PULSE Nightclub: 49 Elegies is a series made to honor and commemorate with a monoprint each of the 49 people massacred at the LGBTQ PULSE nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016. Artist John Gutoskey began this series in early July of that year and completed the 49th print in early October 2016. This exhibit addresses not only the loss, the grief and the aftermath of this tragic event, but also intersects with current issues of gun violence, homophobia, Hispanophobia, violence against people of color and the transgender community, and LGBTQ rights.

Bio

John Gutoskey is an artist, designer, printmaker and collector. Early in his career,  John worked as a costume designer and as a specialist in costume crafts. He worked on productions in New York City and across the United States in theater, opera, dance, film and television. He also taught classes in millinery, mask making and fabric dyeing at the University of Michigan’s Department of Theater. In the 1990s, John went back to school and became certified in various forms of therapeutic bodywork and meditation. At this same time, he returned to his studio with a newfound interest in making art on his own terms, and it resulted in an outpouring of new work. Exploring the media of printmaking, assemblage and “found” objects, he was inspired by the works of Joseph Cornell, Betye Saar, Lucas Samaras,  outsider art, Art Brut and religious art to evolve his own unmistakable style: a perfect mirror for his gregarious, highly animated personality. The obsessive collector in Gutoskey met the trained visual artist half-way.

John earned his BFA in theater design with a minor in sculpture from Webster University in St. Louis, and his MFA from the University of Michigan’s Penny Stamps School of Art & Design where he studied printmaking & installation. He also received a certificate in LGBTQ Studies from the University of Michigan’s Department of Women’s Studies.

John is the owner and operator of the A2 Print Studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan which opened in the fall of 2015.