pics from last summer 04nice bro&andy
at bonnaroo

thepaper

Brian Carlson
AdvPrintmaking
WritingEmp.#1




KURT KEMP


Kurt Kemp is a printmaker/professor that teaches at the Sonoma State University, CA. His work often involves many hues creating images of surreal human and animal hybrids, made with truncated and mismatched limbs. He uses poetic stories or fables to create meaning on occasion, although human relationships, with all their painful pitfalls and tragic ironies, serve as the his main theme. He describes his work as a cross between contemporary pop culture and late 19th century poetry; full of dark absurdity, twisted irony and delight in the ridiculous. The images often challenge issues that most of society would rather not deal with, such as violence, challenging personal relationships, and the struggles we have with social ideals. The subject matter is able to entangle you with it humor, charm and cartoon like forms (2).
His works begin with copper plates that are aggressively worked and embellished through hand coloring and the use of chine colle until one print becomes more elaborate than the one preceding it. Kemp experiments with various inks ran through the press several times to give each print an added dimension of depth and clarity to the narrative he creates. His monoprints have a dreamlike temperature in both color and tone that argument the phantasmagoric quality of his subject matter (1.).
Kemps work has a reputation for provoking strong responses ranging from disgust to hilarity; he tends to enjoy seeing the different responses. He asks “what makes you laugh? Are you whistling in the dark? Are you laughing because you don’t understand it, or because you understand it really well?” A good question to ask with any type of response to artwork….Why do you feel or react this way? Kurt specifically creadits Bay area artists such as Nathan Olivera and Wayne Thievaud, with bringing monotype back into popularity (3).
Kemp has been drawing since he was a child, but the demanding craft of printmaking caught his eye early in his college career. Each one of his works demands an enormous investment of time and energy. His work ethic is something to model.





Sources cited

1.
Aurobora Press. Contemporary Monotypes, http://www.aurobora.com/kemp.htm

2.
MetroActive Arts. Kurt Kemp. Dark Man,
http://metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/08.13.98/kurt-kemp-9832.html

3.
Miyares Gallery. Sonoma State.
http://www.sonomaacademy.org/miyares_ss.asp