Columbia City Paper

The Printmaking Artwork of Bill Hosterman

It is easy to be lost in Bill Hosterman’s prints (in a good way). His images and shapes seem to explore the world on an elemental level, as if he is searching for the core elements that define living things. Hosterman’s work explores ideas about the essence of humans and our environment. Through collage, he constructs and deconstructs each image, keeping what feels essential and leaving other things out until he finally reaches the perfect abstract. 

Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Bill Hosterman earned his BFA in printmaking in 1995, and he received a Fulbright scholarship to study printmaking for a year in South Africa. He spent a year in Johannesburg, working primarily at The Artists’ Press, a lithographic print shop owned and operated by Tamarind Master Printer Mark Attwood, and which was featured at IMPACT 3 in Cape Town. During his time at The Artists’ Press, he was introduced to a printmaking technique called dry point lithography. He completed his MFA in printmaking at Indiana University-Bloomington in 1999.

Hosterman has also studied plate lithography at Tamarind Institute’s summer workshop and non-toxic printmaking with Keith Howard in Canada. Since then, Hosterman has been teaching printmaking at Grand Valley State University in Michigan and enjoys a wide international fame as he exhibited all around the world including: Hawaii, Italy, Germany, China and the United Arab Emirates.

The exhibited prints at McMaster Gallery are non-representational works, which allow the artist to explore figurative styles without limitations; perfect for Hosterman’s abstract depiction of the world –which, as in life, seems somehow both random and calculated at once. His piece “locus,” a term in genetics that represents a fixed position on a chromosome that can be occupied by multiple genes, is a perfect representation of his work; an amalgam of abstract curves and spirals that coalesce into a beautiful whole. 

McMaster Gallery presents “External Signing: The Printmaking Artwork of Bill Hosterman” through October 2.

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