Kunc to receive Printmaker Emeritus award

Cather Professor of Art Karen Kunc will receive the prestigious Printmaker Emeritus Award at the 36th annual conference of The Southern Graphics Council in March 2007. The Southern Graphics Council is the largest non-profit printmaking organization in the country.

The Printmaker Emeritus Award, created in 1978 and presented annually, is a distinction bestowed by the Southern Graphics Council on an individual who has demonstrated outstanding accomplishments and made lasting contributions to the art of printmaking. It is one of the most prestigious national awards for printmakers.

"It is a wonderful surprise and honor," Kunc said. "I will be in really a favored company of past recipients."

Southern Graphics Council Immediate Past President April Katz said of Kunc "the beauty of her relief prints and artist's books, her innovative approaches to the medium, and her international engagement all have had a tremendous impact on the print world."

Kunc joins a prominent list of outstanding printmakers who have received the award, including Michael Mazur, Elizabeth Catlett, Kenneth Tyler, June Wayne, Nancy Spero and Robert Blackburn.

"This is a very well deserved recognition for Karen and for all the work she has done in building her outstanding career, as well as the national and international reputation of the printmaking program here at UNL," said Assistant Professor of Art Francisco Souto. "Obviously I am thrilled and excited to be working with one of the best printmakers in the nation."

The Southern Graphics Council conducts an annual conference that brings together artists and scholars from around the United States and the world. Kunc's prints will be featured in an exhibition at the 2007 Conference next March in Kansas City, where she will receive her award.

Kunc has an international reputation as a printmaker and artist whose works have been exhibited in venues as varied as Kearney, Neb., and Laramie, Wyo., to Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Iceland, Italy, Japan and Russia.

Kunc's medium is reduction wood cut print, a painstaking process that works in the negative and in stages. Using a variety of tools to extract layers of wood, carving patterns and strokes and lines, the technique creates prints in stages, color by color, layer by layer. Her prints are bold, dramatic, calculatedly puzzling. They are instantly recognizable due to her unique style and dazzling color. She was Nebraska's Artist of the Year in 2000 and in 1998, she received the University's Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award.

Kunc began her printmaking career in high school and when she came to UNL for her undergraduate degree, she already knew that this is what she wanted to continue to do. She earned her B.F.A. from UNL, where she studied under Michael Nushawg.

"I succeeded him and knew I stepped into some big shoes to fill when I came back," Kunc said. She returned to teach at UNL in 1983 after receiving her M.F.A. from the Ohio State University.

Kunc said three things drew her to the field of printmaking.

"There were fewer people in printmaking than in the painting studios," she said. "I could work among people in a community studio, but I didn't have to talk as I was quite shy, and it suits my aesthetic-my interest in line, shape and drawing."

She says certain things have remained consistent in her work over the years. She has always been interested in abstraction and has always worked in color.

"The evolution [in my work] is understanding what my voice is and the decisions I make about composition. I find meaning in things that seem purely formal, as I put ideas into issues of perception and transmission of visual sensation."

Kunc takes equal pride in her teaching at UNL and in her work as an artist.

"I'm best at the one-on-one relationships with students," Kunc said. "Helping them with technical problem-solving and resolving their conceptual development. I like the strong relationships that happen from teaching I believe that conversations over the working table bond people. That atmosphere is something I've valued and tried to cultivate."

In addition to receiving the Printmaker Emeritus Award and having an exhibition of her work at the Southern Graphics Council Conference next Spring, Kunc has two important international exhibitions coming up this Fall.

She has been invited to participate in the International Print Triennial in Krakow, Poland, in September. She will also have a solo show at the 7th Triennale Mondiale L'Estampes et de la Gravure Originale in Chamalieries, Auvergne, France, which opens in October. Kunc won 2nd Place in the 2003 Triennale for her work entitled "Echo Spring," earning her the solo show at the 2006 Triennale.

"Indeed, I have been fortunate to be part of the international print world, even being from Nebraska, which has not been a drawback for me - which even has a sense of the exotic out there," Kunc said.

CONTACT: Kathe Andersen, Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, (402) 472-9355