The seventh edition of the residency ‘To Riso or Not’ at Make Eindhoven, in the lead-up to Dutch Design Week, finished a while back. Five young artists spent two weeks working in the graphic workshop of Make, exploring techniques such as dry needle, silkscreen printing, risograph printing and monotype.
The selected artists for this edition were:
Doris Kolpa, Katharina Busl, Malte Hultgren, Niek Opstals and Yubin Lee.
The group was challenged to experiment with the fast risoprinter and other available print techniques at Make Eindhoven. Working in a shared and experimental environment encouraged them to broaden their practice and try out new approaches. Time pressure played an important role. It encouraged quick and intuitive decisions, spontaneous working methods, and an openness to imperfections. This residency was guided by Dutch artist Kim David Bots, the mentor of this edition.
To gain insights into the artists’ experiences, Wobby spoke with them a few weeks after the residency.
Doris Kolpa
Doris graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Art & Research from St. Joost School of Art and Design in 2021. Based in Rotterdam, she works primarily with oil paint, creating inner landscapes where her endless, unanswered questions can wander. Drawing from personal memories, she interweaves them with contemporary life, pop culture, feminism, the digital world, and painterly traditions. Rooted in her urban background, she explores both the natural and intuitive worlds.
Curious about Make Eindhoven and the opportunity to experiment with different techniques, she saw the residency as a chance to discover how her work might respond to them. For her, the residency felt like an invitation to open herself up to new ways of working. During the residency, she created risograph prints and worked with various monotypes.
“With monotype, you have to finish the work in one session so that the ink is still wet enough for printing. This speed of working means you cannot spend much time on decisions, and this creates a spontaneity in the work that I find very interesting. I mainly wanted to play, experiment and explore how my usual oil painting technique translates into other mediums.”
Risograph printing offered Doris the chance to think about layering in a new way. For risograph printing, she had to work in multiple colour layers. This is similar to her approach with oil painting, where she also builds her images layer by layer. With monotype, she focused mainly on how her painting style would express itself within this medium. She seemed to feel most at home with this technique and created several monotypes, eventually working toward one large final piece.
Katharina Busl
Katharina graduated from HKU Fine Arts in 2024. She is a multimedia artist working at the intersection of the physical and virtual worlds, investigating how technology shapes our perception of ourselves and the world, while drawing parallels to spirituality and older belief systems.
During the residency, she aimed to fully explore the available facilities. Her first step was to get an overview of the possibilities while taking the time to learn about the various techniques. While learning about the different methods, she became particularly fascinated by the look of copper etching plates, drawing inspiration from the materials themselves.
“I used copper and researched its symbolic and mythological meaning, and drew parallels to information and communication technologies from today. Ultimately, I primarily worked with copper, using etching as my main technique. I was surprised by how many steps it involves and how long everything takes until the final product is ready. It was a very nice process, but I also wish there was more time because I feel like I just got started!”
For Katharina, it was not so much about the end result, but more about the experimental approach the residency allowed and the opportunity to meet new people. When asked what she learned and looking back on the experience, Katharina was quick to say, “That I should learn to work faster! I learned a lot during this residency! It was nice for me to go back to working with 2D and discover new ways to create. I am very grateful for this experience! I will take away only happy memories from this experience.”
Malte Hultgren
Malte graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 2022 with a degree in Fine Arts. Working in drawing, printmaking, painting and animation, he produces work that reflects and promotes his personal ideology.
Malte was thrilled to be invited to the residency. At first, it felt almost unreal. He didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do yet, but he knew he wanted to make good use of the time. He arrived with some ideas and previous material, and explored risograph printing, silkscreen, monoprinting, and etching.
“It was so much fun, it felt like being back in school. Making is my favourite way of communicating, so it felt very comfortable and homely. I didn’t have a clear endpoint in mind. I just wanted to keep working for as long as I could, and the presentation would adapt to whatever was there in the end.”
“After hearing that the exhibition would focus more on the process than finished work, I decided to concentrate on learning the techniques by using my existing compositions with the risograph printer to understand how the printer worked and how to control the ink. I also experimented with monoprinting and etching, working very improvisationally to learn as much as possible about these techniques. I’ve continued making monoprints at home, although achieving the same consistent results without a proper printing press has proven challenging. Monotype reminds me of calligraphy in a way. It really shows how you move when you paint the lines.”
Beyond the work itself, Malte also learned a great deal and cherished the community and the small moments that defined the residency.
“All the participants and the workshop assistants were such characters. The heated etching table was super cosy! I also became aware that I’ve developed a great deal since I was last in a similar environment, during my bachelor’s degree in fine arts. I felt highly motivated and structured, and having people around me in the workshops to guide me was a great help. The residency reaffirmed for me that I’m capable of working independently, and that I’m exactly where I should be.”
Niek Opstals
Niek graduated from St. Joost School of Art & Design in 2023. In his practice, he combines airbrush, analogue photography, and chemical experimentation to explore themes of identity, dissociation, and the sensory overload of contemporary life. His layered works examine the tension between blur and control, clarity and chaos.
Excited to be invited to the residency, he dove in immediately. His process began with intuitive sketches, which he used to create collages for risograph printing. After that, he worked with analogue photographs and experimented with techniques such as Toyobo and screen printing. His final results are a combination of sketches and photographs, developed using various graphic techniques.
“With risograph printing, I was surprised by the precision and the specific look it gave to the paper. With Toyobo, I was pleasantly surprised because the high-contrast image fits the technique very well. With screen printing, I sometimes had trouble printing on very thick clothing, which sometimes resulted in errors. All the work I have made is a kind of combination of thoughts and sketches around the residency and Dutch Design Week.”
For Niek, working within a group setting opened up new ways of thinking and creating.
“I think a group setting is a very good basis for motivation and for making interesting work. Under these circumstances, I worked differently than I normally would. It is also very nice to be constantly inspired by the people around you. When I met the other artists, I immediately wanted to get to know them better and exchange knowledge with them. That stimulation also made it easier to make my own work, and I realised that in the future I should seek more contact with others.”
Yubin Lee
Yubin is a multidisciplinary artist who graduated with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from Artez University of Arts in 2025. In her practice, she explores an introspective journey into the depths of the self, visualising the process of returning to one’s authentic self. Drawing from an intuitive process, she creates sculptural-painting hybrids that evoke the shifting landscapes of an inner journey. Her work invites viewers into a space where stories emerge between her world and theirs.
Printmaking was entirely new to Yubin, and she was unsure what to expect from the residency. Eager to experiment with different techniques, she sought to understand them better and explore how they might influence her artistic practice. During the residency, she focused on etching, transferring her sketches onto zinc plates and plastic sheets to transform them into prints. This way, she could integrate her original drawing practice into the printmaking process. She also explored screen printing and risograph printing.
“As an artist who expects outcomes as soon as I immediately draw on paper, I felt too impatient as I could not see the outcomes right away or out of my expectations during printing. But I started to let go of my expectations and enjoy the long process with time and care. Also, I enjoyed looking at the mistakes that I made, which normally makes me unhappy. I learned how to enjoy the working process without any stress or expectation of myself. I felt the purest joy during the residency, as I could have fun experimenting like when I was a kid. I realised that before I had been only focused on making the 'best' work, without considering if I sincerely enjoy while making them.”
Yubin shared that she enjoyed working in a group and that the meditative rhythm of printmaking is something she will especially remember.
This project is made possible in part by support from the Mondriaan Fund