Monotype Prints, Karen Hunter McLaughlin

My imagery has almost always referenced nature and its structures. I have a vocabulary of forms which depict objects that typically float and drift through nature– leaf, petal, seed. My hope is to create atmospheric worlds that use these natural shapes to direct the viewer’s eye through each work. For me, they also reference movement through life.

During the early pandemic shutdown, I was separated from my studio and press. I looked at the work I was creating just before, and decided some cutouts were in order. These holes came to represent the absent and the deeper. I finished the work with a backed up layer of “the blackest, the mattest paint in the known universe”- Black 3.0. It seemed appropriate, a new level to move through.

Karen Hunter McLaughlin, Gravity
Gravity, 26″ x 34″ Framed, Rust Print, Monotype and Goldleaf with cutouts over Black 3.0
Bubble Up, Karen Hunter McLaughlin
Look Up, Karen Hunter McLaughlin
Stream Up, Karen Hunter McLaughlin

L-R all works are 22.5″ x 14″ Framed

Bubble Up, Dry-point and Monotype w/ cutouts over Black 3.0

Look Up, Monotype w/ cutouts over Black 3.0

Stream Up, Monotype and Goldleaf w/ cutouts over Black 3.0

Ripples, Karen Hunter McLaughlin

Ripples, 26″ x 34″ Framed, Monotype

Ripples

Ripples was created expressly for Apart:Together. When I made this piece, I was thinking of an essay I read on healinghumanity.org called “The Ripple Effect- the heartbeat to eternity

The Ripple Effect is based on the understanding that we are all connected. These connections stretch like an incredibly interwoven and complicated tapestry. Each of us exists within this tapestry. Thoughts and actions are like stones dropped in a pond and they create ripples that travel outward.

We’ve talked a lot about this effect, the women of Artessa Alliance.  They create ripples which I am happy to be caught in.