RisoLAB Talks vol. 5: Travess Smalley and Kyle Canyon at Printed Matter, Inc.

Join us for RisoLAB Talks vol. 5 to celebrate the release of two new print projects created by the RisoLAB’s Summer 2026 Artists in Residence Travess Smalley and Kyle Canyon! Canyon and Smalley will discuss their Riso-based book and print editions in the context of their work and share their experiences at the RisoLAB, followed by a conversation and Q & A moderated by RisoLAB co-founder and director Panayiotis Terzis. The event will conclude with a reception with drinks and a chance for visitors to meet the artists and purchase editions by Smalley and Canyon.

Wednesday, October 28th
5:30 pm
Printed Matter, Inc.
231 11th Ave.
New York, NY
10001
RSVP HERE

Over June and July at the SVA RisoLab, Travess Smalley produced a series of experimental tabloid-size risograph editions built from the processes he has developed in Pixel Rugs, an ongoing project begun in 2019. Each image starts as a small binary pixel grid held to pure RGB color, scaled and rotated against itself until interference patterns emerge. The results are dense, hard-edged fields of pattern that shift between woven rug and computer chip, quilt block and circuit, ornament and diagram, sitting somewhere between intent and accident. Their repetitions carry the patchwork quilts of Smalley’s Appalachian upbringing alongside pixel art and cellular automata. The prints are presented alongside Pixel Rugs (Vetro Editions, 2026), the monograph tracing the project’s movement between digital images, pen plotter drawings, risograph prints, and hand-knotted wool rugs. The book was printed using Quadrifluox, an offset process that replaces standard CMYK with fluorescent inks and a fifth color, pushing printed color toward the luminosity of the RGB originals and reacting under UV light.

Gauche Neapolitain Girl by Kyle Canyon is a fast paced tale that dives into the thrilling life of a rising Hollywood character actress. She juggles her multi-hyphenated lifestyle, decorates her new postmodern environment, and tries her best to stay out of trouble. However, her tolerance will be pushed to the limit. There’s a bigger secret to our leading lady’s narrative, found between pages and behind folds. You just might have to read twice. The comic’s fractured story arc mimics the absurd montages and arthouse movie scenes it was inspired by. Think the last segment of Mulholland Drive, the tornado scene from The Wizard of Oz, or any of the iconic monologues from Tiffany Pollard during her reality TV confessionals.

Kyle Canyon’s multidisciplinary work focuses on acts of repetition and ongoing sequences. The artist draws on methods of risograph printing and silkscreen, since these processes mirror the repetition and expressive abnormalities that come with rumination, the starting point of Canyons’ narratives. His pop-surreal style works in tandem with psychodramatic narratives to convey the nonlinear self-reflection that arises from this starting point. The work is a creative Frankenstein, combining notes from art history, pop-cultural fixations, and the artist’s personal life to form an array of complex narratives. The artist was born in Newport, RI, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Travess Smalley (b. 1986, Huntington, West Virginia) is a visual artist and Assistant Professor of Print Media at the University of Rhode Island. He treats code and software as a digital painting practice shaped by emergence, textile and pattern traditions, and the open-ended play of sandbox games. The work moves between risograph, pen plotting, digital printmaking, and self-published books, using the risograph as an element in an active generative system. His monograph Pixel Rugs was published by Vetro Editions in 2026, and his work is held by the MoMA Library, ZKM Center for Art and Media, and the Centre Pompidou’s Bibliothèque Kandinsky.

Panayiotis Terzis (b. 1983, Thessaloniki, Greece) is an artist, printer and publisher based in NYC and the co-founder and Director of the SVA RisoLAB. His work has been exhibited widely across the US and globally including at the Elizabeth Foundation, Printed Matter Inc., the Swiss Institute, the Pera Museum (Istanbul), Andreas Melas Presents (Athens, Greece) and the Greek Consulate in New York. He has collaborated with brands and labels such as Hermès, Bloomberg Digital, the Atlantic, and others. Terzis is also the founder of the Risograph publishing platform Mega Press. His artist books, zines and print editions are held in the permanent collection of the MoMA Library, the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library and the collection of Stanford University among others, and his paintings have been collected by Intuit/Mailchimp’s Wink Gallery in Atlanta and private collectors. Pan’s work has been featured on People of Print, It’s Nice That, Booooooom, Juxtapoz, The Comics Journal, Atlas Obscura, and other venues. His studio practice is represented by Good Naked Gallery, Brooklyn.