KRISTA MEZZADRI

Born in 1987 and based in Buffalo, New York, Krista Mezzadri has worked in a variety of media, with printmaking her focus for the past several years. Krista has previously exhibited work in the UK. Her artworks are held in private collections throughout the UK, USA, and Europe. 

Working mainly within a monochromatic palette, Mezzadri encourages imperfect tactility to become a feature of the message of her work. Her monotype prints are made by hand on translucent washi paper, and then layered and overlapped, before being laminated together onto wooden panels with paste.

In this way, her work relies heavily on gestural mark-making. As with all monotype prints, each one is unique. Similarly, as in classic printmaking, ‘ghost’ prints are obtained from ink leftover on the plate. Mezzadri makes use of these ‘ghost’ prints in her works wherein an emphasis of unease and elusiveness is desired. Self-taught, Mezzadri maintains an experimental approach to her artistic practice, which explores the movement of repetition, utilising contrasts of texture and translucency, silhouetted depth and distinct flatness. Engaging with the coexistence of opposites, her work exhibits the fusing of many opposing physical elements together - tissue and wood; light and darkness; geometry and irregularity. Mezzadri is interested in the meeting point of these opposites - their ‘dynamic dependence’. Throughout her work, we see a sustained engagement with triangular motifs, which the artist explores through a reliance on the gestural action of her wrist in alliance with her tools. Overlaps create innumerable varying emotive forms, bringing an organic element to the rough geometry. For Mezzadri, this ‘limitless’ aspect to her works, along with the intrinsically unique nature of monotype printmaking, allows her to explore different motifs that are sustained within her oeuvre in varying expressions.