above: “Two Of Wands (Facing)” (l) and “Two Of Wands (Future)” (r), 2025. Etching and aquatint, editions of 20.
Edie Fake’s new etchings will have their public debut this week at the IFPDA Print Fair. Stop in at Manneken Press in booth A21 to see them, and many of the other other prints we have published over the past 25 years.
Two Of Wands (Future) and its companion, Two Of Wands (Facing), are based on the Tarot card, 2 of Wands. In Tarot, this card card typically features a person looking out over a landscape, contemplating future choices or opportunities. It’s about surveying possibilities and weighing potential paths forward; dreaming into the future and making plans. “Wands” are a tarot suit based in action and energy, aspects that the artist intentionally emphasizes – that planning into the future lays the groundwork for acting with intention.
Fake began working on the prints during the run-up to the 2024 U.S. election, which portended (and subsequently resulted in) a massive cultural wave of transphobia. The meaning of the 2 of Wands, that regardless of a present situation, there is the space to see a way forward, came into focus through the creation of these prints.
The Two Of Wands Tarot card portrays two wands. In the prints Edie Fake chose to split the dyad into a pair of prints, and gave each a distinct, key trait: one wand is “Facing” – confronting history and the present, observing how the current moment is shaped; the other wand is “Future” – looking toward what is needed and wanted, and ascertaining how to get there
In Two Of Wands (Facing), the wand is topped by a large box, a housing for history; candles for memory, a keyhole for doorways that have already been chosen, while in Two Of Wands (Future), the wand consists of unformed potential, and therefore embodies less symbolic meaning.
Contact Manneken Press for current pricing/availability or additional information.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Edie Fake is a painter and visual artist whose work examines issues of trans identity and “queer space” through the lens of architecture and ornamentation. Fake’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo shows at the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; Broadway Gallery, NYC; Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco; and Western Exhibitions, Chicago. His collection of comics, Gaylord Phoenix, won the 2011 Ignatz Awardfor Outstanding Graphic Novel and he was among the first recipients of Printed Matter’s Awards for Artists. Fake’s latest projects include mural installations for The Drawing Center, NYC and BAMPFA (Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive), Berkeley, CA.
Born: 1980, Evanston, IL
Education: BFA, Rhode Island School of Design, 2002; graduate studies at University of Southern California, 2015.
Lives and works in Twentynine Palms, CA.
above: Edie Fake works on his etching plate at Manneken Press, October 2024.
