Colleen Premer – Intuitive Nature of Printmaking

Colleen Premer – Intuitive Nature of Printmaking

November 16 | 5:00 – 8:00PM
Corona Del Mar High School

Moving through the artistic process intuitively and without conscious thought, Colleen Premer taps into her artistic soul to produce balanced and harmonious compositions. This southern California printmaker is lured by the world of monotype and monoprint for the immediacy of results, but she also lends her creative hand to encaustic painting and intaglio printmaking.

Colleen is highly influenced by her artist mother, Elaine Kennedy, who was an acclaimed local painter and printmaker. She was exposed to the art world at an early age through her mother’s circle of friends and the many art shows, exhibitions and gatherings they frequented together. Although Colleen has a journalism degree and an M.S. in clinical psychology, her passion for art kept tugging at her heart. She eventually discovered printmaking at the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts.
Colleen Kennedy Premer monotype printmaking

Ranging from abstracted shapes to intricate design, Colleen’s body of work takes its inspiration from observed line, shape and color. She often contrasts recognizable elements, like a spinning Ferris wheel, with shadowed spheres and elongated patterns. Her creativity doesn’t stop there! Colleen also works with chine colle, image transfer and printers inks for a multi-layered print that is steeped in meaning. Some of her more recent works have embedded excerpts of letters written by Colleen’s mother, creating timeless memories.

Always pushing herself to solve a problem from a different angle, Colleen’s work reinvents the familiar to present it in a new and unusual way. Her recent Tattoo Truck linocut relief print boldly presents the cab of a big rig head on. With careful control, Colleen has carved and outlined tattooed flames licking the outer shell of the cab. Rougher cuts add dimension within the image’s background. Colleen’s inspiration largely is drawn from her attraction to the clean lines and human-like features of cars and trucks. Additionally, the methods and history of Japanese printmaking and artistry (including the culture’s unique take on tattoos) intrigue Colleen. The result is extraordinary!

Ever changing, always experimenting, creating beauty out of the mundane, Colleen surprises us with a greater level of sophistication every time we see her newest works. And, we would love to share them with you!

About Colleen Premer

Colleen Kennedy Premer has dedicated almost 30 years to the art of printmaking. Although the majority of her works are monotypes and monoprints, Premer has also explored other printmaking processes and has furthered her creative expression through encaustic paintings, collagraphs woodcuts and intaglios.

Premer’s greatest inspiration was her mother, artist Elaine Kennedy, an acclaimed painter and printmaker. Although Premer did not start her creative endeavors until later in life, she spent her childhood and much of her adult life surrounded by art, artists, and related culture. While her formal education was centered on writing (B.A. – Journalism) and people (M.S. – Clinical Psychology), her passion has always been to make art, and since discovering printmaking in the late 80’s at the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts, she has embraced her creative outlet.

Most of Premer’s prints take an interesting slant on something familiar and reinvent those images in a new and unusual way. Her icon choices may be either vague or recognizable, yet always subject to personal interpretation by the viewer. Premer’s choice of colors and her ability to generate texture and depth to her prints give her pieces character, originality, and a sense of timelessness.

Premer and her husband and their three boys live in Newport Beach, California.