EUNICE LUK
by MATTHEW JAMES-WILSON
Eunice Luk emphasizes patience and process with both her personal practice and her one of a kind publishing project,
Slow Editions. Eunice became interested in art community and production while growing up in Toronto after noticing the colorful and intricate show flyers hung up around the city. Seeing the flyers led Eunice to the long running artist studio Punch Clock, where many of the flyers she saw were made by the printmakers who worked there. Inspired by local artists like Michael Comeau, Jesjit Gill, and Alicia Nauta, Eunice began printing and sculpting at Punch Clock while in college, and eventually launched her first small press, Fantasy Camp. After putting out a handful of projects and tabling the New York Art Book Fair, Eunice’s practice turned a sharp corner as she began to consider the longevity of her projects and how she would look back on them in the future. In starting Slow Editions Eunice set out to put out precisely what the press’s name suggests.
Each object that Slow Editions produces requires a amount of consideration and time that many other small publishers
overlook with their products. Eunice has put out a plethora of different physical goods with the press, releasing sculptures, textiles, music, and even soap as a part of Slow Edition’s growing catalog. She carefully curates projects featuring a wide range of artists while still allowing each edition to form at its own pace. Since relocating to Japan a few years ago, Slow Editions has changed its output based on the community and resources that are at Eunice’s disposal. But her vision for the project remains consistent and concise.
I first met Eunice at Zine Dream in Toronto last summer, and was astonished by all of the work she was selling at
her table. We then crossed paths again at another fair in Vancouver in the fall, were she had an installation with her long time collaborator Alicia Nauta. But finally this spring, while Eunice was in LA for Printed Matter’s art book fair, we got the chance to hang out and record the following interview. In it we talk about getting the courage to print other people’s work, taking your time with projects, and how your practice can change with your surroundings.
Where are you from and where do you live currently?
lot of them. It’s cool to go through that process together.
I’m from Toronto and I live in Tokyo right now. I’ve been living there for almost four years.
Did you have any sort of art community at your disposal outside of school when you were a teenager?
What was your experience like growing up in Toronto?
I went to lots of shows when I was younger. I feel like a lot of art communities in Toronto are connected through music too. Musicians just need artwork sometimes. Especially flyers. Punch Clock made a lot of cool flyers at that time. It was really important to see those posters. They were all screen printed and put up on the streets. That was a time in Toronto when that was happening. I was first drawn to art community through the posters and the colors. When we showed up at the Punch Clock showcase, Michael Comeau was there with these different screen printed costumes and every where was wall papered. That was a very special period. Through that I got to know more work.
I went to an art high school and then an art university. I met a lot of cool people in the print departments, so having a studio with them really influenced me. It was really special. Were you encouraged to make art growing up? Did art fill a place in your life that other things couldn’t? It just so happened that art was the only thing that I could do and was interested in doing. I think that was the only thing I ever did. I didn’t really try science or math, haha. I read though. I was just interested in making stuff. I think drawing was the first kind of art that I did in kindergarten. At my high school we had drama kids, and music kids, and choir kids—it was just lots of people doing art in one high school. I met lots of good people, and I still know a
What kind of work were you making when you started going to OCAD (Ontario College of Art and Design)? During college I was doing illustration. I was making work that I wasn’t really happy with, and I didn’t want to
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