Kristen McClarty

Kristen McClarty (b. 1973) is a contemporary South African printmaker working from her studio in Kommetjie, Cape Town. Best known for her distinctive woodblock prints and reduction woodcuts, McClarty has developed a highly regarded printmaking practice that explores memory, landscape and the traces of human presence within the natural world.

Since taking up printmaking in 2016, her work has been exhibited extensively throughout South Africa, including at David Krut Projects, Gallery 2, StateoftheART, the Association for Visual Arts, RK Contemporary Gallery, W17 Gallery, Kalk Bay Modern and White River Gallery. Internationally, McClarty has exhibited at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair in London in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and is represented in the United Kingdom by Circle Contemporary in Cornwall. Her work was featured by the gallery at the London Art Fair in 2024 and in a solo presentation in Cornwall later that year.

McClarty's original woodblock prints and limited-edition handmade prints are held in both private and public collections, including The Art Bank of South Africa acquisitions of 2022 and 2023/24. Her work is collected throughout South Africa, the United Kingdom and internationally by collectors seeking contemporary printmaking of exceptional technical and artistic quality.

READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH KRISTEN MCCLARTY

Selected Exhibitions:

2025
RED HOT, PINK SPOT — RK Solo Studios, Riebeek Wes
Reflections — Old Town House Museum, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair: Director's Cut — Online Exhibition
Art on Paper XVI — Kalk Bay Modern, Cape Town
Head Under Water — RK Contemporary, Riebeek Kasteel
London Original Print Fair — Somerset House, London
Why Not a Print? — Lizamore & Associates, Johannesburg

2024
No Holds Barred, Group Exhibition — RK Contemporary, Riebeek Kasteel
Narratives of Cape Town, Group Exhibition — RK Contemporary, Riebeek Kasteel
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2024 — Woolwich Arsenal, London
For(Sea)Change, Group Exhibition — Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town
The Distance Between, Group Exhibition — RK Contemporary, Riebeek Kasteel
Paper Tale: A Celebration of Women's Art on Paper — StateoftheART Gallery, Cape Town
London Art Fair 2024 — London, United Kingdom

2023
Sweef: A Group Exhibition — Hugo Modern, Cape Town
The Garden of My Mind: A Group Exhibition — Gallery 2, Johannesburg
Heaven and Earth: A Group Exhibition — StateoftheART Gallery, Cape Town
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2023 — London, United Kingdom
Palimpsest: A Retrospective Immersion — W17 Gallery, Cape Town
Lingering: Holding Memory — White River Gallery, Mpumalanga

2022
Ebb: A Group Exhibition — Daor Contemporary, Cape Town
Fabrication: A Message Folded, Moulded and Stitched, Group Exhibition — StateoftheART Gallery, Cape Town
Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Group Exhibition — Association for Visual Arts, Cape Town
Girls Girls Girls!, Group Exhibition — Daor Contemporary
Miniatures in Print, Group Exhibition — Gallery 2, Johannesburg

As an artist, how do you reconcile the world around you (with all the current chaos and uncertainty) with the inner world you want to bring to life through your art? Does this experience inform your work in any way?
While the chaos of the world has become a permanent backdrop to our lives, my role as an artist is to communicate a message. For me, that is the idea that we are responsible and should be held accountable for our actions and thoughts. After all, what is the implication of my supposition that experience rests in a place, never departing and interacting with what comes after? In my view, there is no clean slate and there is no time or place where what we have done just disappears. The things that we do mount up on the environment around us, just as graffiti accumulates on a wall. And as a result, our actions and inactions require consideration. This idea is one that I try to communicate through my art, and although this may seem a passive approach, my job is to persuade the viewer and I will persist in this.

Are there any practices or processes in your artmaking that have come to surprise you in their efficacy or importance as you have developed as an artist?
Over the last year or two, I have tried to slow down the woodcut process to allow time for sideways experience. This comes in the form of state prints and the use of multiple blocks in different permutations. I have found that this approach gives me the opportunity to think through derivative ideas that add to my work in terms of concept and complexity. While I have exhibited my work showing these different possibilities, there is still work to be done to explain this to the viewer, to show them the implications of different or successive courses of action. This approach further supports my overall theme of lived experience lingering and being visually evidenced or documented in diverse ways.

What tools or practices would you say are currently at the heart of your creative process?
My practice is centered around woodcut and working off the surface of wood. I am still focused on the texture of the surface from which I print, and the surface onto which an imprint is made. I am currently using a diverse range of papers and paper textiles, many of which are made in Japan, as a way to expound on the fragility and imperfections of layered life.

How would you say your art and artmaking process has developed over the years?
I would say that my work has become more conceptual, or maybe that I have become more adept at visually demonstrating my thoughts through my work. By working on different series or bodies of work in parallel, I give myself the flexibility of experimenting with work that is not necessarily intended for a specific exhibition. Sometimes, the results of this tangent are in fact exhibited. This process of play and testing ultimately allows me to develop new work and ideas. The experimenting also allows me to challenge the mediums with which I work to produce pieces that display processes that are not generally used by other artists.

What advice would you give younger artists who are starting out about the professional/business side of being an artist?
As with any career, the main thing is to show up and do the work. Do not expect to be noticed or receive higher affirmation in the short term, as this is quite rare. In that, it is the same as any career, as it takes years to build up expertise and experience. Unless you are that lucky special one, in which case that is fabulous.

Is there anything as an artist you have been wanting to explore but perhaps have been afraid/hesitant to? This could be either themes or technical processes.
There are other specialist printmaking techniques that I would like to spend time on, some of which I already do and some of which I would like to explore further. Printmaking, by its nature, lends itself to collaborative work, which can result in more challenging processes being used and larger or more interesting work being developed. So, this is something I will be setting aside time for.

What thrills you as an artist/what terrifies you as an artist?
The main thing that keeps me coming back is the thrill of making something that did not exist before and finding a way of saying what I have to say, in a way that is seen and heard and taken into the space of the viewer.
What terrifies me is indifference to what I make and say through my artwork.

What is something that you feel artists don’t talk about enough?
Being professional.

What keeps you motivated as an artist?
Exhibition opportunities, a place to show my work and explain a thought or process, to what I regard as the ideal viewer or audience. The chance to show a complete body of work in one place is the ultimate goal, although that is quite rare in the current environment. When a gallery, collector or audience “gets” the work, that is what I strive for. But for that, it must first be seen.