Kelly Reemtsen | Multiples: A 10-Year Survey
LOS ANGELES, CA | Opening May 4, 2022, albertz benda is pleased to announce Kelly Reemtsen: Multiples: A 10-year Survey, her first solo exhibition at their new gallery in Los Angeles. Featuring prints from the past decade alongside a pair of newly realized paintings, this show will examine the evolution of the multi-faceted artist’s printmaking practice. Reemtsen will lead a series of two-hour long workshops accompanying the exhibition during which small groups will explore printmaking processes firsthand. Visitors will produce their own unique prints as means of reflecting on the imagery and themes most prevalent in Reemtsen’s work.
Reemtsen operates her own printshop in London, where she focuses on producing woodcut prints with Victorian-era Albion presses. She has collaborated with master printmakers since the 1990s, most recently with Tony Clough at Serio Press in Pasadena on two new editions that will be released in conjunction with this exhibition. Reemtsen is inspired by the unpredictability of printmaking, finding reverence in the surprising and at times laborious process. The interchangeability and multitude of images inherent to the craft motivate her work, as her printmaking and painting practices fluidly inform one another. “Each edition and proof,” Reemtsen says, “grants me the opportunity to refine, shift, and develop the image in tandem with my shifting mind.”
Reemtsen’s imagery has remained consistent across her various and shifting mediums and techniques. From her early etchings to her more recent screen-prints and woodblock prints, Reemten’s vision is defined by traditionally feminine women taking on roles often perceived as masculine. These subjects seldom reveal their faces, which are often obscured by the paper’s edge. Cropped at their shoulders, these women are anonymous and inscrutable.
The artist would like to offer special thanks to Cameron Lido, Advanced Graphics, London; Theo Lotz, Flying Horse editions, Orlando; Bob Saich, Advanced Graphics, London; Peter Pettengil, Wingate Studio, New Hampshire; Tony Clough, Serio Press, Los Angeles; Dave Lefner and Richard Durato, Los Angeles.
