Like the previous artists who have attended this year and the previous, Kailey Mackenzie Brown (1993) should have attended our electro-etching worksho-residence in the summer of 2020. She is the artist who got our grant for young artists that summer, but until now he had not been able to come due to the universal Covid-19 pandemic. When she applied for the scholarship she was living, from 2018, in Harbin, China where, as an artist-in-residence, she learnt Traditional Chinese Woodblock and taught Western printmaking at the Heilongjiang Art Museum and Heilongjiang Printmaking Institute. As an American citizen, she was forced to return to her country due to Covid-19.
Despite her youth, Kailey is a very active artist, with long-ranging experience in graphic arts. She attended the University of Alabama in Huntsville and graduated in 2017 with her Bachelor in Fine Arts with a focus on Printmaking. Currently she works as an assistant and papermaker at the Brodsky Center in Philadelphia. And simultaneously as an assistant manager in printmaking at the printshop of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts while working towards her MFA.
She is one of the most rigurous artists who have attended our residency. And she, too, has great experience in different graphic processes such as woodblock, lithography, serigraphy and etching.
The processes that Kailey was able to practise during the two weeks of her stay were: lines on hard ground, open-bite electrotint and with lithographic crayons; Lines and electrotint on graphite ink as resist; Semi-dry electroetching, where she took advantage of the two plates installed at each of the poles (negative and positive) necessary for this process with fine graphics; all to be seen from the sample of her prints. She also worked with passive electro-etching on zinc plate for deep bites and printing as embossing and Big Red etching ground used for lines and electrotint. And she experimented with galvanizing lines, an exclusive graphic process of the technique with electrolysis.
I hope that she will soon be able to set up her own electro-etching workshop and carry on with the practice of these etching processes that are healthier for artists and the environment.
Pictures from the workshop
Kailey Mackenzie Brown speaks about her experience in the workshop-residency
Attending the residency felt like a relaxing dream. My residency had been postponed two years due to covid and it was well worth the wait. Alfonso and Amparo made me so welcomed in their home. The scenery of the ocean landscape is beautiful, but also the printshop is quite lovely. Alfonso is patient in his teaching of electro etching and knowledgeable in answering any questions you may have. I had a wonderful time learning from him and also being allowed to explore the process in new ways. For me, line etching was my favorite part of learning electro etching. The crispness and depth of line from electro etching is something I have never been able to achieve in ferric or nitric etching. The time I spent learning was wonderful, but also seeing more of the island, the city, and visiting the ocean allowed for the perfect balance of work and down time. I am planning to set up my own electro etching station in my studio within the next year. I would recommend this residency to anyone interested in learning a new etching technique or seeking to learn a fully non toxic etching process.
Kailey Mackenzie Brown's electro-etchings
