Artistry by Kristen
Nostalgia and Belonging in Printed Form
Kristen is a printmaker whose etchings depict light and shadows in an effort to understand what belonging and displacement mean to her. These concepts reveal themselves in her prints through the literal and metaphorical distance between objects as she paints with acid. Based between Italy and America, Kristen travels around the world trying to understand the similarities and differences in humans in comparison to herself. Her prints are a vessel to keep the people, the memories, and the emotions alive. Kristen has exhibited prints in America and Europe including several solo exhibits in England and Italy. She has received awards from Ironbridge Printmaking and Teravarna. Her prints are held in many private and public collections.
A glimpse of the different types of prints available …
Alone with Others, 12 x 20 cm, Aquatint Etching $150
Quiet Seclusion, 28 x 21 cm, Drypoint $300
Somewhere I Almost Stayed, 20 x 30 cm, Aquatint Etching $200
Between the Shore and Sky, 20 x 30 cm, Aquatint Etching $300
Patchwork Sea, 10 x 20 cm, Etching and Coffee Lift $200
Contradiction: Venezia, 40 × 60 cm, Charcoal and Linocut $450
Discover the Collections
The Reminiscence collection of prints depict home and belonging as shifting feelings rather than fixed points. Each piece is an intersection between what is present and what is absent on the plate, both physically and metaphorically. The forms give way to feelings as both movement and stillness are captured in each image.
No one can truly belong everywhere. At some level, everyone has experienced both belonging and displacement. Each print becomes a vessel to figure out what belonging means which is represented by moving horizons, crowds forming and dissolving, and reflections blurring into memory.
The latin word for reminiscence is reminisci, meaning “to look back”. It suggests both warmth and distance, like remembering something that is fading. The misty light and the shifting water/sky further emphasize an environment receding from memory. This begs the question: do we feel belonging most often in hindsight, when we reminisce?
Reminiscence
The color collection showcases rich hues found in nature that are in conflict with the colorless absence of the human sillhouette. In certain cultures, colors symbolize health, emotions, spiritual realms, and many other things. The feeling of displacement from your culture or your people, whatever that means to each individual, can be an adandonment of those colors or a recognization of the tangible nature of colors as symbols of rememberance and comfort. Each color in this collection is connected to past memories, moments, and emotional experiences. For example: the soft pink of nostalgia, the agressive nature of dark red, the misty mysteriousness of light green, and the stormy pain of deep blue. All colors have the possibility of expanding the visual field and bringing people further into the world of the artist.
Color allows the space to express yourself in another layer. Sometimes artists are afraid of using color and the intentional nature of this collection is overcoming that fear. To find the beauty and the tension in colors. To exhale color, to release them, and let them exist in whatever way fits the situation best.