Title LandEscape
Artist / Creator Karen Kunc
Press Name Blue Heron Press
Artist's Nationality United States
Place of Publication Lincoln, Nebraska
Publication Date 2016
Contributors Helen Hiebert
Process / Technique woodcut and letterpress
Number of Images entirely composed of images
Structure / Binding accordion fold, housed in a covered box
Paper Stock artist made handmade paper of cotton and abaca with watermarks
Number of Pages 8
Dimensions (WxHxD) 6 x 5 x .5 inches (opens to 36 inches)
Edition Size 40
Box / Wrapper paper covered box
Signed & Numbered Signed & Numbered Edition

LandEscape by Karen Kunc

$1,200.00
This book began with drawings twisted (literally) in string that established a collaborative landscape realized over two years of conversation and trust. Helen Hiebert created watermarked illustrations in an artist-made cotton/abaca paper, and Karen Kunc responded by producing a woodcut image that interacts with the watermarks, fitting into the spaces, overlapping, making edges, and saturating them with color. Paper and print are meant to intrigue with shadows and illusions. The letterpress text is a stream of conscious ‘poem’ that plays typographically with the readings of images.

Artist Bio

Karen Kunc’s prints and artists books stem from her contemplation of the forces of the natural world, ephemeral encounters and the immeasurability of time and distance. Her unique style of printing records the process of destruction and creation inherent in reduction woodcut, and as an artist she takes on an omniscient role as evolutionary choices move toward the resolution of her images.

Karen Kunc was born in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. She received her BFA from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1975, and her MFA from Ohio State University in 1977. She is Professor Emeritus of Art at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln where she has taught from 1983-2020. Her works have been shown in exhibitions nationally and internationally: The National Academy Museum, NY; Sheldon Museum of Art; Davidson Galleries, Seattle; Krakow Print Triennial, Poland; Excellence, Chamalieries, France; Invisible Cities, Ca’ Zenobio, Venice, Italy; Galerija Art 55, Nis, Serbia; Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis; ARTag Gallery, Helsinki, Finland. Her prints and artists books are in numerous public collections: Museum of Modern Art, NY; the Library of Congress; New York Public Library; Stanford University; Milwaukee Art Museum; Haas Arts Library Yale University; Jyväskylä Art Museum, Finland; Huntington Museum, WV; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC; Zimmerlie Art Museum Rutgers University; Cleveland Museum of Art; Honolulu Museum of Art; Joslyn Art Museum. She has taught workshops around the world, in Egypt, Italy, Finland, Poland, Japan, France, Mexico, Iceland, Bangladesh, Spain; and she has lectured as a visiting artist to over 200 institutions, including: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, University of Tennessee, University of Georgia, Cornell University, American University Cairo, Academy of Art Helsinki Finland, University of Virginia, Kyoto Seika University Japan. She has served as juror of selection for national competitions, and has organized and curated exhibitions of prints that have traveled to France, Egypt, Czech Republic, Finland, Italy and Bangladesh.

She is the director/owner of Constellation Studios, Lincoln, Nebraska, a creative work-site for print, paper, and book, inviting artists for residencies, workshops, exhibitions, print publishing and project collaborations.