PRINTING PRO: Printmaker Dave DiMarchi sorts a newly printed edition, “Perhaps Was Once,” a nine-stencil screenprint, 14×14” on BFK Rives. Edition of 25, 2026. (Photo by Ryan Stander)

By Thomas Kelly

Dave DiMarchi is a printmaker. He teaches Printmaking at the Arts Council of Princeton. Printmaking is sometimes the hardest art form to explain. Straightforward images on a plate will be seen in reverse on the paper once printed. Many things are not always in your control. DiMarchi’s prints are bright, colorful, modern, and really draw you in. As you try to understand what he is saying with his artwork, you may also begin to wonder how exactly he is able to say it in the print.

How did you first fall in love with printmaking?

Printmaking was first introduced to me in elementary school in the briefest of art classes, where our teacher’s goal of getting us to make relief prints into meat tray Styrofoam was probably far outweighed by her want for us not to stab ourselves in the eye with the wooden skewer we were tasked with using. My love of printmaking was truly ignited in college: a second year Introduction to Printmaking course got me out of the photo darkroom, where I’d become so comfortable, but found myself wanting to do more than make photographic prints. I wanted to be inky, I wanted to know how to use the machinery of print, and I wanted to explore image-making in new ways. That course opened doors to new ways of working and new techniques to discover.

What was your progression of the different printmaking techniques?

I’ve always been someone who dives headfirst into process, and each printmaking technique — screenprint, intaglio, relief, lithography, letterpress — comes with its own processes. As an experimental and exploratory printmaker, I’ve worked through each process in traditional ways, guided by influential and knowledgeable instructors, and then found my own language, my own processes and my own ways of working across techniques to best serve the work I make. When I teach, I mimic how I was taught: I start with the basics of black and white relief printing and build skills towards more difficult or more in-depth processes. The goal, as an instructor, is always the same: “try it.” Find yourself in one or many techniques, learn their intricacies, master their process and then develop your voice.

What is your favorite subject matter/style for your work?

I’m consistently drawn to work that has a strong voice and a compelling narrative and find my own work often seeking to do the same. I tend to work in a collage-style, a layering of imagery, text, texture, and pattern, often accompanied by photography and drawing, not to present one clear, easily read story, but to provide ample entry points to the work for the viewer. While the work is intended to look like collage, I am determined that each element be a printed one, even printing shadows, folds, creases, glue seeps, and tape to confound the viewer, to really question what they’re looking at.

Which printmaking method is most difficult for you and which if any are more natural?

Printmaking, generally, is a set of techniques, each mired in their own slow processes: image-planning, platemaking, ink and paper selections, proofing and fixing, and editioning (the act of making multiple identical copies). I love these slow processes for the inherent relationships you build with each step, and the familiarity that comes with visiting them over and over. The outlier, for me, is monotype, a technique in which you make one-off prints, not editions, that so often rely on painterly layers, spontaneity, loose and gestural mark-making, and a surprise as you lift the press blankets. I’ve never been comfortable working this way, and although I’ve recently begun a gouache painting practice in earnest, I’m never going to find comfort in monotype.

Teaching printmaking is very complex. Where do you start? The paper? The ink? The method?

Each printmaking technique speaks its own language, sometimes soft and tonal, sometimes hard and graphic, sometimes meant to mimic an entirely different process; knowing the techniques’ voice, and setting expectations that allow you to work with — not against — that voice, is hugely important. I was taught that a mastery of the technique — how you make —should work in tandem with the importance of what you make. A compelling piece of art could lose all impact if its poorly made, and likewise a well-made piece of art can be undone if it doesn’t have anything to say. Once you’ve figured out what to say and how to say it, deeper discussions of paper, inks, colors, layers, impact, and audience become much easier to have.

Are the beginning students amazed at the results? Are they happy to produce multiples?

Beginning students, especially those with no print experience, usually fall into one of two categories: amazed or underwhelmed. For students who find themselves amazed, the excitement of working in new processes (and printing in multiples) comes very quickly. For students who find themselves underwhelmed? Further conversations about expectations or exploring other approaches or different techniques almost always gets them eager to try. The joy of printmaking is that there are so many ways to make prints, something will resonate if they’re open to exploration.

What struggle do you have regarding your art (studio space, money for supplies, physical limitations, time to create, recognition, sales, etc.)?

I have the same struggles as most artists have: finding the time and space and motivation to create. My partner and I moved from New Hope (Pa.) about a year ago, downsizing into a space that could no longer house a separate studio space for me. I went from making work almost daily to spending many months only touching printmaking when I was teaching. While I still don’t have the space at home, my role at the Arts Council allows me the space to pursue printmaking just a stone’s throw from home. This shift has allowed me to “professionalize” my practice: finding time between a fulltime job and teaching to devote to the studio, and knowing that when I’m in the studio, I’m there to work.

Are you printing editions for other artists?

My positions at the Arts Council (studios and building technician, print studio manager, contract and master printer — I wear a lot of hats!), as well as some freelancing through my own press, 9INHANDPRESS, do afford me the opportunity to print for other artists and work alongside artists to develop portfolios of exhibition-ready works. There’s a joy in the monotony of printing for someone else, and an exciting pressure to get it right. While I’m not currently working on any editions for other artists, I’m always open to figure out how and when I can make this happen.

Why do you think printmakers are so attached to all the sights, sounds, and smells of the practice?

There’s very little better, as a printmaker, than opening a can of fresh ink and smelling the pigment suspended in linseed oil, or the sound of a squeegee pulled across a screen, or the sticky tack of an ink rolling across a stone or block. It is addictive as it is meditative. It is becoming one with the process, a cog in an art-making machine that’s the draw, an attraction to a centuries-old process that largely exists as it did hundreds of years ago.

Is patience a virtue needed to be a successful printmaker?

Undoubtedly. There’s an inherent slowness to printmaking — no part of it comes fast or easy. Paper needs to be torn, plates and imagery need to be made, prints need to be pulled, ink needs to dry. Patience is baked into printmaking; you often cannot move from one step to the next without a little (or a lot of) waiting time. But that patience is rewarded when it all works out in the end.

Where can we see your work?

In lieu of making my own work as of late (check back with me later this summer!), I’ve been doing a fair amount of curatorial work: this past November, Elizabeth Massa and I co-curated a printmaking takeover of all the gallery spaces at the Arts Council. In January, I traveled to Minot, N.D., to serve as juror for an international works on paper exhibition and work alongside Flat Tail Press at Minot State University on a new edition of prints, and I just returned back from St. Louis, Mo., where I juried an international call for prints and taught a screen printing workshop with the St. Louis Artists’ Guild. While these opportunities have kept me busy, I’ve also developed a suite of classes and workshops I’m offering at the Arts Council this summer and fall, including one that explores the marriage of print and ceramics. My own work, right now, is divided into two parts: teaching myself to paint with gouache (I’m determined to break free from edition printing!) and pulling a multi-process edition of 30 prints for a portfolio of 26 printmakers organized by Philadelphia-based BYO Print and the Collective Futures Festival, coinciding with the country’s Semiquincentennial celebrations and highlighting the vital role grassroots initiatives take in shaping civic dialogue and community resilience.

What is on the horizon? What are you looking forward to?

I’m eagerly looking forward to getting away this summer: my partner and I are spending two weeks in Europe exploring the Mediterranean coast from Barcelona to Sicily. It’s a part of the world I’ve never been too, and I’m excitedly anticipating the art, culture, and food that awaits us. I’m also eager to come back into the studio with a slew of new inspirations and an as-of-yet unknown output of work that’s sure to spill out of me.

To learn more, visit 9inhandpress.com or Instagram @9inhandpress.