Art in the Park to bring variety of artists to South Park, including featured artist Justin Marable (Sponsored post) – The Lawrence Times

The Lawrence Art Guild will bring more than 130 artists to South Park on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 13 and 14.

These artists include painters, ceramicists, woodworks, fiber artists, sculptors, photographers, and more. Among these artists are nine printmakers, including the 2025 Art in the Park featured artist, Justin Marable. 

Marable is an award-winning Lawrence printmaker whose work is found in public and private collections across Kansas. He creates screen prints using silkscreens, squeegees, and monoprint techniques of his own invention. As some artists illustrate color or space, Marable’s work depicts time.

“My work explores imaginative landscapes, merging the past and present to create new moments in time,” Marable says. 

Many of his landscapes are clearly from Kansas or elsewhere in middle rural America, but the colors used create a feeling of the past. For example, in his piece “Strange Stroll,” a bison wanders through a city, clearly out of place, but in a space that was once his home before towering buildings and parking lots were built. 

Each Art in the Park printmaker brings a distinctive vision to their work. 

Nick Perry creates limited edition silkscreened prints on cotton paper that, in his words, “explore the visual language of Americana through the lens of pop surrealism.” Perry handcrafts each print using traditional silkscreen methods, emphasizing process and tactility in a digital age. 

“I embrace bold lines, saturated color, and the imperfections of analog techniques, aiming to create work that feels alive — like it could have been plucked from a dream, a memory, or a forgotten billboard off Route 66,” Perry says of his style.

While Perry’s works are full of imagery which create fantastic yet familiar worlds, Nate Crosser’s Japandi pieces have a sense of peacefulness infused with their stylistic design. Crosser hand carves each wooden block using both Western and Japanese techniques. 

Printmaking can be labor-intensive, with wooden or linoleum blocks carefully carved. Caitlin Penny, for example, does reduction printing, meaning that after each application of color she hand carves more of the block away before adding the next layer of color. She adds layer upon layer of color to create an image that takes weeks to create. 

Art in the Park provides a wonderful opportunity for patrons to discuss processes with these printmakers, as well as with artists specializing in more than a dozen other mediums.

Visitors can discuss woodworking techniques with Terry Evans, and how he developed his twists to traditional bandsawn box work, or talk with Matthew Roman about how he sees sculptural shapes within salvaged wood.

When visiting with glassmakers, patrons can learn about blown glass or kiln-fired works — some sculptural, some small treasures of jewelry. 

Whether they are painters, potters, metalsmiths or more, each artist selected to be an Art in the Park artist has a unique vision that they are happy to share with the public.

The event will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 13, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 14 at South Park in downtown Lawrence. Learn more and see a list of participating artists at lawrenceartguild.org.

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