Print Series

Karshan began making intaglio prints in 1995 with Master Printer Todd Norsten in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She began with drypoints and etchings, continuing in 1996 and 1999. In 2002 she made both etchings as well as woodcuts with Norsten.

In 2000, she worked with Hope Sufferance Press, London, making a series of etchings at the heart of Time Being; Le Temps, Lui, an artist’s book published by Les Editions Signum, Paris.

She has worked extensively with Niels Borch Jensen in Copenhagen since 2005 - always in intaglio - including projects in 2007, published by Jean Yves Noblet Contemporary Prints, New York; in 2009, 2012, and 2014, for projects published by Hein Elferink, Netherlands.

Karshan has worked with Pratt Contemporary Art, producing Marks, 2006, an artist book (UK), and Edizione Canopo in Prato, Italy, producing Moti dell’Animo, an artist’s book, in 2012.

In 2016 she worked with Master Printer Gregory Burnet in New York. Her first Lithographs were made in 2017 with master printer Peter Stephan at Grafikwerkstatt, Dresden.

Within German museum collections her prints are well represented at the Folkwang in Essen; the Graphische Sammlung in Munich; the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, and Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern, Germany. In the UK both Tate Gallery and the British Museum have her prints among their holdings. In the US her prints are held at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dresden Prints

Karshan's first series of Lithographs.

A series of 5 Lithographs in an edition of 7.

Printed by Peter Stephan at the Grafikwerkstatt, Dresden, 2017

View the video Educating the Stone by Weissraum

Contrapposto with Line - Litho - 2017.jpg

Glint I - VII, 2016

All works are drypoint etchings and are 76.2 x 58.4 cm. They were printed by Gregory Burnet at Burnet Editions, New York City, April 2016

Very few lines describe these large, spare, graceful figures. They give the impression of the archaic. When carving the lines into the grounded plate, my body demanded that each line be carved once, twice, thrice and a fourth stroke. Each line is both etching and drypoint.

Exhibited at Galerie Biedermann, Munich, 2018; Silas von Morisse, Brooklyn, 2017; Reform Club Exhibition, London, 2017.

Edition of 10.

"Linda Karshan’s most recent series of etchings was undertaken in New York in collaboration with printmaker Gregory Burnet. The series started life as a set of drawings, made in Burnet’s studio. The drawings were laid over white transfer paper on top of the printing plate, which allowed the drawings to be gently ‘inscribed’ using a pencil, through the paper onto the waxy ground that covers the metal printing plate. Once the paper was lifted, a clear white drawing remained on the grounded plate. Using a diamond tipped etching stylus, the drawing was incised into the ground twice and then twice directly into the copper plate to achieve the ‘burr’ that is typical of drypoint.

In keeping with the rest of her way of working, she continued to seek out graceful means of enacting marks: sustained by her count, shifting her weight and bringing her concentration to fully bear on the convergence of the line on the plate. You can see the way that the marks evolve across the series of the prints, both in complexity and in the increased assurance (or confidence) of the mark. The ‘glints’ or gaps between the lines indicate the moments of pause, rest, intake of breath, before the pressure of the mark is once again borne down onto the plate. The finished plates were placed in acid, allowing the areas of the plate exposed by the drawing process to be ‘etched’ by the acid. Burnet, as the printmaker, decided how long the plate needed to be in the acid to get a deep, clean etch. After inking, the plates were meticulously wiped and buffed before going through the press, to expose the clarity and fragility of the inscribed line."

- Elizabeth Tomos, 2016 (printed in Studio View: a book in three parts, 2017)