Chris Chandler, Portland artist and founder of Neu Haus Press, installed a collection of printed works titled “Modular Shifts,” now on display in the Dengerink Gallery. The show, curated by The Arts Gallery Committee of WSU Vancouver, features art pieces composed of abstract shapes and letters combined into thought-provoking, seamless letterpress prints inspired by Chandler’s love for music.
Chandler founded Neu Haus Press in 1996, following his 30 year career as a sound engineer in the music industry. While touring with and recording albums for bands and musicians such as Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips, Elliot Smith and Miley Cyrus, Chandler would make printed promotion posters and work on other small projects. After Chandler retired from the music industry, he started working towards a new dream: professionally pursuing letterpress art.
Chandler said that when he first started letterpressing he did not have the budget to attend school or afford tools. Instead, he taught himself the art form and used whatever materials he had at his disposal – such as leftover magazines, papers and nails.
“I slowly worked my way up to buying a press, a letterpress. Back in the ‘90s, you could get them really cheap. I am not good at structuring anything, so I think at school I would have done terrible, it was good to find my own way,” Chandler said.
The works in “Modular Shifts” are produced via printmaking – the process of making art with ink and plate or block surfaces. Being Chandler’s preferred medium, he said the letterpress is a niche tool to work with, even though most people might associate it with wedding invites or greeting cards. Chandler takes the old, traditional craft of letterpressing and explores its new possibilities.
Found on the wall of the North side of the Dengerink Gallery, a multicolored mural – named “Modular Shifts” – is the star of the show, representing his past within the music industry through an explosion of letters, shapes and primary colors that emulate a stage performance.
“Here, you can kind of see where the words come into play. … Sometimes if I get stuck, I’ll just spell a word or take a number or letter and I’ll keep scrambling it until it turns into something I like.” – Chris Chandler
“You would take lead type or wood type with ink, and put it in a press and run your paper through it, and it would emboss the images onto the paper. That’s what they used to print with a letterpress,” Chandler said. “That’s where ‘Modular Shifts’ came from, not wanting to have to keep creating wood blocks all the time. If I could get 20 blocks to reuse over and over and still make hundreds of different pieces out of it … this way, you can keep recreating endlessly.”
In the mural piece, there are different shape configurations in the style of an old letter font from the ‘40s titled “Alpha-Block,” originally used to make neatly formed letters on a small scale. Chandler enlarged the font, mixing up letters and words to form abstract prints.
“Here, you can kind of see where the words come into play. … Sometimes if I get stuck, I’ll just spell a word or take a number or letter and I’ll keep scrambling it until it turns into something I like,” Chandler said.
Another piece in Chandler’s collection titled “Fade Out” is influenced by his passion for sound engineering and his experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. He wanted to mimic the way music fades at the end of a song, symbolically representing his shift from one art piece to another. Located on the East wall of the gallery, the piece is a monotype relief print split into two, where a singular black circle slowly fades out to the left and right sides of the piece.
“I thought, ‘How can I change and move onto something else? Because I am kind of fed up with everything.’ So I said ‘okay, I’ll fade out this project that I’m doing and I’ll make it go away,’ so I slowly created an audio fade out in my mind with the piece disappearing,” Chandler said.
Chandler’s work is known internationally, and he is represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland. According to the Neu Haus Press website, the artist has other current and future exhibitions in Portland, New York, Long Beach Island, Los Angeles and other locations. Chandler said he was attracted to WSU Vancouver after seeing his colleague Hannah Bakken’s work, “Words to that Effect” in the Dengerink Gallery last year.
“I just love the space, the natural light, a lot of activity, a lot of students coming through here, so many good things to go with it. So, I hinted and asked if they ever had anything open, they said they would look into it and call me back. Finally, they had a spot for me, very exciting,” Chandler said.
Although Chandler’s studio is not public, he welcomes interested visitors to visit his website here, or contact him directly through Instagram @neuhauspress to request a tour.
On Sept. 21 at 2:30 p.m., the artist will be on campus to talk about his work in the Multimedia Classroom Building room 107, and provide a walkthrough of the exhibition after. Chandler’s installation will continue to be on display until Dec. 16, 2022.
Visit the Dengerink Gallery to experience “Modular Shifts” and get lost in the unique details presented in Chandler’s work.
Olivia is a senior studying English at WSU Vancouver.