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Michael Vasquez

@vasqmic

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→ MFA grad @tyler_printmaking
→ designer + printmaker + international icon
→ rome (for now)

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Say hello to Michael Vasquez, a second-year MFA and “all-around icon” from Santa Cruz, CA. From Michael:

I’m a riso artist and graphic designer from Santa Cruz, California. I’m currently studying at Temple Rome, where I’ve been thinking a lot about time, memory, place, and what it means to carry pieces of people and places with us.

My practice explores memory, intimacy, and connection through printmaking, photography, poetry, zines, and printed ephemera. I’m interested in the things we leave with one another and what remains after time has changed us—using repetition, deterioration, circulation, and touch to think about how images, stories, and traces move between people.

Sour Candy (vol. 3)
Risograph tabloid zine
5.5 x 8.5”
Edition of 50
2026

Dissolution
Risograph animation
1080 x 1080 px
2025

I am an Observer, but Not by Choice
Platinum Palladium prints on Arches Platine with letterpress dry debossment, self-portraiture using projection and image mapping of found images, excerpts from “I am an Observer, but Not by Choice,” by Fatima Aamer-Bilal.
10.25” x 14”

A collection of various artists, myself, and online archives.
Risograph prints
Various sizes
2025-2026

Small Evidence
Risograph prints
12” x 18”
Edition of 10
2025

House of Salt (Evidence)
Risograph printed one-page zines
2.75” x 4.25”
2026

💋 taken in Temple University Rome by @vasqmic

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a month ago

Some of my latest explorations 🙂‍↕️🤓 swipe to read more !

Contact monotypes from offset Risograph on paper

The process is something I’ve been experimenting with using discarded Riso master sheets. Instead of treating the masters as waste, I’m using them almost like a plate to make contact monoprints—drawing, rubbing, and mark-making directly through the leftover ink on the master and transferring those marks onto paper.

I’m really interested in the fact that the process is somewhat unpredictable and still feels like I’m figuring it out as I go. The images are built through this process of pressure, transfer, and repetition, so there’s a kind of tension between the very graphic quality of Riso printing and this much more physical, imperfect way of making an image.

I’m also using fluorescent pink pretty intentionally as a nod to the visual language of ACT UP and queer activist printing. So there’s this connection between the material being discarded/reused and the history of printed matter being used to circulate queer images, information, and messages. At the same time, I’m interested in pushing the Riso process into something it wasn’t really designed to do and seeing what kind of images can come out of that.

The imagery comes from things I’ve been learning about and encountering here in Rome, especially around Pier Paolo Pasolini and Caravaggio. I’ve been thinking about them as queer artists who lived and worked in Rome in very different periods, and about the feeling of recognizing parts of myself in artists who lived hundreds of years before me. I’m looking at them while also trying to see myself through them.

This connects to the idea of a collective ancestry, and to the traces artists leave behind for people they could never have known. I’ve been thinking about Walt Whitman in relation to this: how we can feel connected to people across time through what they leave behind, and how looking at their lives and work can become a way of understanding our own.

The imagery becomes a kind of conversation across time. I’m taking these figures, places, and histories that I’m encountering in Rome and filtering them through the contemporary, physical process o taken in Rome, Italy by @vasqmic

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3 days ago

Sour Candy vol 3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️ available for FREE if you live in the Philly area

DM for a copy, delivery from yours truly 💋

Risograph printed tabloid-style newsletter

#Risograph #Printmaking #Zine #aidshistory #queer taken in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by @vasqmic

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3 months ago

Today we left Portland 🥹 it took 12 hours but we’re California girls once again !!! 😚😋💋 I’ll miss u forever taken in Capitola, California by @vasqmic

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a year ago

Almost a month into living abroad in Rome … here is a collection from my camera roll over the last couple of weeks printed in a CMYK one page zine :,)

Yellow, Flo pink, Medium Blue, & Flat Gold taken in Rome, Italy by @vasqmic

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a month ago

I turned 28 today ✨ the longest year of my life fr at least my body tea tho taken in Trout Farm Inn by @vasqmic

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4 months ago

The summer I almost died (but now I live in Italy so it’s okay lol) taken in Rome, Italy by @vasqmic

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2 months ago

Happy early Valentine’s Day 🥰💋 from me to u! Will be selling these bad boys tomorrow all day in @tyler_artandarchitecture to raise money for the print guild’s trip to NY this spring :-) taken in Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University by @vasqmic

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8 months ago

Finished my first year of grad school and I can definitely say I am now hotter and smarter than I was a year ago (and more susceptible to lead poisoning) taken in Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University by @vasqmic

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6 months ago

Everybody say bye to 2025 !!💋🥂🫰🏼 comment down below your top 2025 pics of me👇🏼⬇️ by @vasqmic

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10 months ago

In an effort to do what I can for my community, I have been printing and distributing posters around Temple University & Philadelphia Metro… if you have an idea of a poster you’d like to be printed, contact me and I’m happy to bring your voice into print!!! 🫶🏻💖 thank you to @outletpdx for the idea and @katebingburt @corinneteed @amzeland for the endless support!!!

Credits
Poster 1: designed by me!
Poster 2: Katy Nelson & Thomas Beard from @printedmatterinc
Poster 3: @natstronaut
Poster 4: @mongequentin
Poster 5: @emodog98
Poster 6: @atomicsharkie
Poster 7: from @outletpdx archives by @vasqmic

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9 months ago

Don’t worry guys still sexy even after surviving first semester of grad school !! taken in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by @vasqmic

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10 months ago