Kirsty White

Since her upbringing on a remote farm in the hills of the Tararua district, Kirsty White has been left with a legacy of love for our landscape. Attending Massey University, Kirsty gained a Bachelor in Design, falling in love with the print room along the way.  Now as a full-time Wellington printmaker, she enjoys living on the rugged south coast translating this love of landscape from her sketch books into fine art, using layers of texture and tone through the printmaking process.

Kirsty’s hand printed landscape and native bush etchings are merged with patterning, printed from bamboo wood engravings. This enables her to convey a narrative, reflecting a sense of this country’s journey within a contemporary landscape. Kirsty’s work is highly original and imbued with her passion for the beauty and stories of Aotearoa.

Kirsty’s printmaking process

Each artwork is handprinted from etched or engraved plates which creates a slight variation in each piece.

Kirsty predominantly specialises in drypoint etching with woodblock relief and embossing.  Her drawings are started onsite (she loves a good road trip) and are used to create the etched plate.

Etching is an age old printmaking technique which I combine with an engraved woodblock. The woodblock (bamboo ply) is engraved with my pattern work incorporating more drawings inspired by our landscape’s history and stories. The final stage for my native bush series is to emboss into the final print using a lino cut.

The patterning and colours are inspired by Fijian Masi cloth and Maori Whakairo, giving an impression of tapa/masi cloth to the landscape.