KRISTEN McCLARTY

Kristen McClarty is a printmaker with a focus on woodblock, botanical contact print and stitch.  Kristen’s work centres around personal interaction with her surroundings, spaces, circumstances and her response to those things.  

“The last year has found me in a state of flux.  A time of empty nests and shifting roles.  Of unclear paths ahead and unavoidable rerouting. A time of loose tendrils flying in the wind and escaping being pulled in.  Of having to rethink, pivot, learn and learn again, make and remake.

In this time, certain spaces and ideas have grounded me, providing permanence and assurance.  It is to these places that I crept, again and again, to settle myself and calm my unravellings. These are the spaces I present in a series of multilayer reduction woodblocks and linocuts – layers of monotone, slowly built up to achieve the quiet and permanence of the place.

In this time, I have resumed a habit of sitting quietly and making watercolour sketches of what I see.  An attempt to capture the essence of the surroundings.  These tiny watercolours have morphed into Mokuhanga prints – woodblocks done in the Japanese style, in watercolour.  The first of these tiny prints is presented.”