Karen Kunc Visualizing the Urban / Rural Divide

Malaspina Printmakers is pleased to present “Visualizing the Urban/Rural Divide” a solo exhibition of woodcut prints by renowned printmaker Karen Kunc. Influenced by the time she spends in urban environments and her home in rural Nebraska, Kunc’s imagery evokes concepts of the interdependent and often imbalanced relationship between humans and nature and the cyclical processes of life. Through her use of rich and luminous colour, combined with a deconstructive and experimental process Kunc creates elegant and forms and atmospheres that transcend the conventional expectations of the woodcut medium.

Printmakers and Print-based artists from around the world and invited each year to submit proposals to the Visiting Artists Program. Visiting Artists have 24 hour access to the studio during the one-month residency and an exhibition of their recent work. Individuals participating in the Visiting Artist program also conduct demonstrations and artists talks. As a Visiting Artist in Residence, Kunc will be creating new prints in the Malaspina Printmakers studio for the month of June. During her residency, Karen Kunc has proposed to continue work on a series that she is beginning in New York. Her intention is to create a visual vocabulary that can be juxtaposed with her own core imagery, which has come from conceptualization of her rural surroundings in Nebraska. Her work in New York will initiated the development of this visual vocabulary as she is situated in the unfamiliar urban setting. She will continue her work at Malaspina by investigating the language further while experiencing Vancouver’s own contrast of nature and metropolis. Visitors are welcome to come to the studio to see the prints in process.

Kunc hails from Nebraska where she is Professor of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has taught at such institutions as the Fine Art Academy in Helsinki, The Centre for Book Arts in New York and the Kala Institute in San Francisco. She recently won the Southern Graphics Council “Printmaker Emeritus” award and has exhibited across the United States and Europe.