Featured Artist Hannah Klaus Hunter

Artist Hannah Klaus Hunter captures the botanical landscape of Northern California in her vibrant monoprints and collages. Learn more about this artist by visiting her website.

 

 

My love of all things “plant” stems from my father, a writer with a great love for gardening. From early childhood, I listened to my father regale us with the beauty of his vegetable garden; the exquisite spiral of a pea shoot, the opulent purple of the eggplants, the delicate tracery of roots on a scallion.

 

 

I began to actively work with flowers and plants in my own art five years ago, when, as a working art therapist on a pediatric ward, I looked for a way to find beauty in the midst of the inevitable grief. I signed up for a botanical watercolor class, and discovered my antidote.

 

 

From that point on, I began to explore the seasons of our central California valley in prints, watercolors and collage, fascinated by the subtle shapes of leaves silhouetted against the sky.

 

 

Trees, shrubs, and anything that blooms offer inspiration for my prints. I walk the paths that weave through our town, studying leaves. When a shape strikes my eye, I pick it and return to the studio only when I have a pocket full of greenery.

 

 

I spread out my shoots, leaves and paper and think about my palette—what are the colors of the landscape? Do I want to blend those, or to work in a counterpoint to them?

 

 

Using a combination of papers and acrylic paints, I begin. When printing, I often begin with an idea, but soon, I let go and instead, observe what shows up in the prints.

 

 

As I work, there’s alchemy between hand, paint and paper. Even the air creates different results on any given day.

 

 

Integrating text and image in my artwork comes from my family and my long time journal practice. I love the journal format, the way in which experience accumulates on the page. I organize my work in series of 6 to 20 prints, hung so that they form a large square or rectangle. The entirety can read as a visual journal; each piece of paper a day, a moment or an hour that adds to the whole.

 

 

Currently, I’m working a series loosely entitled “Field Notes from Home” for a solo show in 2018. I’m challenging myself by working on larger prints, recombining elements of text and prints in new ways and dancing on the edge of abstraction.

 

 

My goal is to create work for interior spaces that brings our natural world inside, offering viewers a moment of beauty, a respite for the eyes and the soul no matter what the setting.

 

Artist Hannah Klaus Hunter invites you to follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

 

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