Kristen McClarty is a self-taught artist, working out of her studio in Kommetjie, Cape Town.  Over the last ten years, she has exhibited first paintings and more recently, printmaking and textile (botanical contact print and stitched) work, in galleries in the Cape as well as Gauteng and Mpumalanga.  Her attention turned to printmaking in 2016, when she spent time working in the studio of Alma Vorster, learning printmaking process and technique, with a focus on relief printmaking, dry point intaglio and monotype.  In 2021, Kristen started on reduction and multiple layer woodblock prints, in the Western and Japanese techniques. This body of work has been exhibited in Cape Town and continues to develop.  Kristen draws inspiration from her surroundings, places she finds herself, and her emotions in those places.  She spends considerable time outdoors, recording light, shadow, cloud movement, rock formation and silence, both in photographs and water colour sketches.  She also works in acrylic on canvas, generally painted en plein air. These pieces of information are translated in her studio, into woodblock and monotype prints. Kristen works from small to large scale, feeling for the edges of an idea, and often revisits similar source material to develop an area of interest.

Artist statement

Kristen McClarty has spent the last year developing a new body of work, using reduction and multiple block woodblock, monotype, and water colour to translate feelings of immersion in a place.   This work covers her interaction with the environment of the Cape, stretching from the coast to the Cederberg.