About the Artist
Kathryn Cirincione
Kathryn Cirincione is a printmaker, photographer and painter who lives and works in Bolinas, on the coast of Marin County, California, and has been making art since childhood. A citizen of both the United States and Italy, she comes from a Southern Italian family whose ancestors worked as painters, church muralists and stained glass artists. Kathryn has lived, travelled and worked extensively in Europe and Latin America, from Peace Corps service in Medellín, Colombia, to teaching in Verona, Italy, and her art carries the events, traditions and vibrant colors of those worlds. Her work joins a heritage rooted in ancient church art with a contemporary social conscience. She draws on current events, culture, sports and symbolism, often placing unrelated images side by side and leaving room for the viewer's own reading. Every day she absorbs what is happening in the news, in society and in the culture, and brings it into the studio, where she lets her tools and collected scraps lead the way. Her techniques range from solar etching, drypoint, collagraph, lithography, linocut and screenprint to monotype, watercolor and encaustic, often layered as mixed media. She prepares her own plates and screens and prints in signed, numbered limited editions. Before turning fully to art, she earned an M.A. and PhD at UC Berkeley and taught at UC Berkeley and the University of San Francisco. Her work has been selected for juried museum and gallery exhibitions across the United States and in Japan, including MarinMOCA, the Chaffey Community Museum of Art, Washington Printmakers Gallery and the Japanese Paper Museum in Tokushima. She won MarinMOCA's Emerging Artist of Northern California award and the Magnum Opus XXVII prize in 2016.
“Kathryn Cirincione is a printmaker, photographer and painter in Bolinas, on the coast of Marin County. From solar etchings and screenprints to monotypes, watercolor and encaustic, her work takes what is happening in the news and the culture and turns it into images of remembrance, fun and wonder.”
The Process
Inside the Studio
The Painting Process
Every day Kathryn Cirincione absorbs what is happening in the news, in society and in the culture, and carries it into the studio. There she lets her tools and the scraps she has collected lead the way, juxtaposing images that seem unrelated until they start to talk to each other. That, she says, is when something magical happens. Her range of techniques is wide: collagraphs, drypoint, etchings, lithographs, linocuts, screenprints, monotypes, watercolor, encaustic, handwork and mixed media, often layered together in a single piece. She prepares her own plates and screens and prints them herself. Many of her etchings are solar etchings, pulled by hand on a Griffin etching press, sometimes in three colors, sometimes finished with handwork, as in Monarch or Who Am I to Judge?. Editions are small and personal. Prints are signed and numbered in limited editions, from editions of six or ten up to fifty, and each comes with a certificate of authenticity. Her monotypes, such as Rain Dance and AUTUN, are unique originals. Other work happens away from the press. The encaustic portraits, among them JFK, GEORGE and EMANUEL, are built up in wax on wood panels. The Condiment Series, with Tomato 57, Sun*Maid and Classic Yellow, uses pigment and shellac on paper. The Oahu watercolors were painted on site in Hawaii, and her wildflower watercolors study single blooms like the Leopard Lily and Indian Paintbrush. Her subjects range from faith and history to politics, sports and the familiar objects of everyday life, drawn from a Southern Italian family of painters, church muralists and stained glass artists. What ties it together is her belief that creating art may be the most human of activities.