FINE ARTS TRAVELER – Karinna Gomez, the museum’s fine arts collections coordinator, is finishing up a residency at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, CO. She is one of 14 artists working in disciplines ranging from painting and sculpture to ceramics and photography. Gomez is a printmaking artist-in-residence and had been working on new etchings and mezzotints, as well as a series of collages on panel. “It has been absolutely amazing to be so immersed in the studio with no other distractions and it has also been energizing to meet and work alongside other talented artists.”
Why did you decide to go to UAF? I’m originally from the San Francisco Bay area in California and went to Northwestern University for my undergraduate degree. I studied art, lived in Iceland for a year on a Fulbright fellowship, and drove to Fairbanks in 2011 to begin the MFA program at UAF. My time in Iceland inspired an interest in continuing to live in the North, and so I decided UAF would be a good choice for grad school.
What brought you to the University of Alaska Museum of the North? At Northwestern, I worked as a curatorial and print room conservation assistant at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art for four years. I found collections work tremendously enjoyable and have since continued to seek out museum opportunities. I began working with Fine Arts Curator Mareca Guthrie at UAMN as a grad student in 2013 and it has been a wonderful experience contributing to the various collections projects.
When did you first discover a passion for artistic expression? I suppose my interest in art comes from my mom who is also an artist working as a sculptor and printmaker. I have always drawn, but was curious to try printmaking. I was attracted to the particular marks and surfaces you can get from prints that you can’t really get from drawing directly on paper. I first made prints at Northwestern and since then it has been my preferred way of working.
How would you describe yourself now as an artist? I’m a printmaker focusing in intaglio techniques including mezzotint, a process enabling half-tones to be produced without using line or dot-based techniques. [Intaglio is a family of printmaking techniques where the image is cut into a surface which holds the ink rather than creating a relief print.] My work shows liminal spaces in exploration of darkness, sleep, and experiences of the North. Recent subjects depicted in the mezzotints include communication towers, power substations, and weather instrumentation drawn with bright, incised lines in a vast, black field. Lately I’ve also been exploring collage on panel as a way of expanding my practice to include more drawing, color, and new subjects and forms.
What has working at the museum meant to you as an artist? Working in the fine arts collection at the museum is a great compliment to my life as artist. I love the variety of tasks involved and the balance between hands-on work, such as mounting and framing art on paper or preparing objects for storage, and cerebral work like managing the collection database. Working in the collection, I continue to learn about Alaskan art and history, as well as practical skills such as exhibition installation, which informs my own artistic practice. I also feel that some of my skills as an artist prove useful in my role in the museum, adding to the feeling that each area of my life compliments the other.
You recently won an individual award from the Rasmuson Foundation. Can you tell me about that project? Receiving the Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Project Award was an incredible honor and I am so pleased to have support to carry out my work. I proposed traveling to Norway to begin the creation of a new series of mezzotints. Since I have spent time in Iceland and Alaska, I thought it would be interesting to explore another northern place to see how that land differs and is the same. I plan to participate in an artist residency located in the northern fishing town Kjollefjord, as well as one in the Lofoten Islands next month.
What are your immediate plans after the residency? After the residencies, I will be returning to Fairbanks to prepare the work I make for an exhibition at Well Street Art Company in April 2016. As for my future, I am most interested in continuing in the museum field particularly working in collections. My time at the Block Museum as an undergrad inspired in me an interest in museums and working at the Museum of the North has only broadened my interests and excitement to continue working in the field.
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