Collaborative Prints by Fanny Retsek and Sandra Starkey Simon (FARSISS)

Fanny Retsek and Sandra Starkey Simon collaborate to create traditional prints with radical intent. Along with a shared love, respect and concern for living things and the environment, Fanny and Sandra share a passion for traditional printmaking techniques, and print’s history of activism. These prints not only tell personal stories, but also address climate change, deforestation, habitat loss, and the sixth extinction.

The imagery in this body of work comes from the artists’ time out in nature, both close and far from home. They piece together their drawings of the natural environment and wild animals left in cities, suburbs and towns as well as in our oceans and remaining undeveloped lands. The scenes vary from jubilant and whimsical encounters with emus to landscapes ravaged by fire that reflect all the losses seen in this lifetime. Gone are the frogs and salamanders, trout and salmon, abundant bats and birds, snakes and swarms of singing insects.

Fanny and Sandra met in graduate school at San Jose State University. In 2002, they opened Magpie Studios print workshop in San Jose, California. When Sandra returned to Australia in 2006 Magpie Studios split into Magpie South, Adelaide, South Australia and Magpie North, Stanford, California. Fanny and Sandra continued to spend time working in their own studios and in each other’s on visits. After a decade of shared times working together, in 2015 they began a collaborative art practice despite the distance between them. A rhythm of working and direction came naturally and their individual styles combined to form something altogether new.