Print Exchange 2025: Kari Kristensen

Kari Kristensen’s work embraces disparate lines of Canadian and international art history, responding to both through new forms. Printmaking, in spite of sustained practice across geography and cultures, has a quiet platform in contemporary Western art. She seeks to reimagine the Canadian Landscape tradition and its persistence in her and our consciousness, most notably in her current series Chasing Shadow. Harnessing lino printing’s even ink application, combined with the choice of a clean monochrome aesthetic, Kristensen fully embraces the limitations of the medium itself, only to defy them. Her mural work is an extension of the printwork—although using paint, the line work is very similar to the marks made with a gouge in linoleum. Just as the linoleum carved leaves an impression on the paper, similarly, the mural leaves an impression of her respect for the landscape.