Reinaldo Gil Zambrano is an award-winning printmaking artist based in Spokane, WA from Caracas, Venezuela. From an early age, RGZ began collecting unique stories from random social encounters that highlight the common aspects of the human identity that later enriched the visual narratives of his drawings and relief prints.
His narrative raises questions of daily issues equally experience by people across culture and borders using relief printing as a storytelling tool for its illustration and reflection. He studies the universal idea of home and how it affects individual personalities by exploring iconography derived from the Majority World and fascinating storytelling inspired by Hispanic literature’s magical realism and illustrations from the Venezuelan Rosana Farias. His wordless visual narratives seek to challenge the limitations of the written language and bring people together in celebration of the commonality of their collective experiences.
His desire to promote the printmaking practice has guided him towards the development of projects such as “First Vandal Steam Roller Project”, “The Ink Rally”, projects where large carved pieces were printed on fabric using an asphalt roller and the help of many printmaking enthusiasts. RGZ have been collaborating with local non-profits in the development of the Spokane Print Fest a venue that celebrates all things print related where local universities, students, artists, instructors and professors offered live printing demos and exhibited artwork in the pursue of promoting accessible printmaking to the rest of the community. Such projects have worked as communal developers and forces of integration between the academic, artistic and larger community in the Northwest.
Reinaldo is currently an assistant professor of Printmaking at Gonzaga University as well as an artist member at the Saranac Art Projects and Co-founder of the Spokane Print & Publishing Center
This ART 158 lecture took place on February 24, 2021, on Zoom. Made possible through the generous support of the Carmen Morton Christensen Endowment, the Department of Art & Art History, and the College of Fine Arts.
