Artists Danielle and Kevin McCoy— a St. Louis-based couple known together as WORK/PLAY—use illustration, minimal design, and experimental printmaking practices to spark dialogue and inspire audiences. For the inaugural season of the 100 Boots Poetry Series, WORK/PLAY was invited to create limited-edition broadsides to commemorate this new collaboration and continue the rich tradition practiced at the former fort gondo poetry series of producing prints of selected poems by each visiting writer. Seeking inspiration from Medardo Rosso: Experiments in Light and Form currently on view, WORK/PLAY closely examined the textures and colors of Medardo Rosso’s sculptures, as well as the layered experimentation in the artist’s photography. The resulting prints, a visual artwork of text authored by each of the six poets in the 100 Boots series, are available for free at each reading where visitors may have their broadsides autographed by the featured poets.
WORK/PLAY’s current body of work investigates predisposed stereotypes and narratives pertaining to the African diaspora often propagated by media. Working together over the last decade, the duo has led numerous print-making workshops, developed public murals, and participated in group exhibitions at the Mark Miller Gallery in New York, The Sheldon Art Galleries in St. Louis, the O Cinema Wynwood in Miami, and several other galleries in the St. Louis metropolitan area.
