Artist's Statement

Artist's Statement

Studio Catherine Kernan

Catherine Kernan is a printmaker, painter and author.

She is co-founder, and partner of Mixit Print Studio, a professional open rental printmaking studio in Davis Square, Somerville, Massachusetts, and co-author of, "Singular & Serial: Contemporary Monotype and Monoprint".

 

The premise that human relationships with the earth are reciprocal and move in cycles of repetition and variation underlies all my work. Deterioration and renewal are genetically ingrained in human perception, and our behavior elicits responses from the earth, something critical to acknowledge as environmental systems are under increasing threat of mutation, and collapse.

In recent work I ask the viewer to re-assemble fragments of information by summoning memories of moving through a dynamic landscape. Overlays and repetitions of images signal the compression of time into simultaneous space, past, current, and anticipated.

Working at the interface between printmaking and painting, I collaborate with the unexpected, surprise and chance, thus ceding a measure of control but always responding to results. The search has become as engaging as the destination so I never print an image the same way twice, uniting concept and process in the repetitions, variations, and accumulations that are part of improvisatory printmaking.

Often now I can look at my artwork and recognize it as true to my experience of space and time, movement and memory. The process is a profound "be here now" experience.

Contact Catherine

pdfCatherine Kernan – resume


Book Release:

Singular & Serial: Contemporary Monotype and Monoprint
Catherine Kernan & E. Ashley Rooney, with Laura G. Einstein & Janice Oresman

Singular and Serial cover

The fascination with monotype and monoprint never diminishes, thanks to the primal thrill of making a mark, combined with suspense and surprise as paper is lifted from a press.

Recent prints from more than 70 top artists across the US demonstrate what monotypes and monoprints offer to artists and the broader world of art, while Kernan, a professional printmaker, provides a view from the studio. She explains the processes and motivations for making singular prints, as well as current practice and context.

Examples include unique prints and variations that cross boundaries with combinations of collage, collagraph, direct and transfer drawing, painting, photo-sensitive plates, digital printing, and paper casting with stencils. With their backgrounds in curating, collecting, and art history, Einstein draws us into the history and traditions of the forms, and Oresman writes as a collector about the fascination of monotype as a magically spontaneous process.

Schiffer Publishing: https://www.schifferbooks.com/singular-serial-contemporary-monotype-and-monoprint-6636.html

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Singular-Serial-Contemporary-Monotype-Monoprint/dp/0764357271