PRESS
"Mixed Results at the Alberta Biennial"
Agnieszka Matejko | Galleries West | Sunday, June 4 2017
It’s hard to overstate the value of biennials. These bastions of experimentation and fresh vision can catapult artists to new heights while offering the public snapshots of contemporary art from around the world. Biennials are to art what the Olympics are to sport.
"Artist Kristopher Karklin Manipulates His Memories of Oilsands"
Stephen Hunt | Calgary Herald | Sunday, March 22 2015
In Backyard, (nighttime), a nude man stands inside the garage of a suburban house at night, lifting weights.
It’s a recreation of a teenage memory from Calgary photographer Kristopher Karklin’s coming of age in Fort McMurray, where he used to listen to his dad’s cassette tapes while pumping iron in the garage as he tried to bulk up to give himself some masculine street cred.The tapes were classic pop tapes from artists such as Simon and Garfunkel, Queen — and Elton John.
“Bennie and the Jets,” says 32-year-old Karklin. “His Greatest Hits.”
Little did Karklin know, but one day, Elton John would own a number of Karklin’s eerily melancholy staged photographs, the latest collection of which opened in a solo exhibition at Barbara Edwards Contemporary Friday night — but that’s exactly what happened.
"Oilpatch Artistry"
Marty Klinkenberg | Edmonton Journal | Saturday, August 11 2012
After returning to his home-town of Fort McMurray several years ago, Kristopher Karklin got an itch for the oilpatch. It is an odd yearning for a fellow with a fine arts degree, but as he lived in a massive work camp in northern Alberta and perused the barren landscape, Karklin realized his job installing telecommunications lines was fuelling his creative desire.
"When I saw those places the oil industry built for transient workers, I thought it was in-sane," Karklin says. "There are thousands of people living together, yet they are isolated, separated by the thinnest drywall. Those visuals - the blandness and bizarreness of it all - appealed to my artistic senses. Suddenly, I felt a need to create it."
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"Fresh talents take prize"
Sandra Sperounes | Edmonton Journal | June 15, 2012
Edmonton experimental filmmaker Kyle Armstrong and hip-hop sensation Mitchmatic are two of the winners of this year's Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Awards.
Each prize comes with a $10,000 cheque and a medal. Lt.-Gov. Donald Ethell handed out the honours to eight artists at a ceremony Thursday morning at Government House.
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"Emerging Artist Award Recipients"
ArtsAwards.ca
Sir Elton John’s response to seeing Kristopher Karklin’s work was, ‘I’ll take three.’ The adjudicators’ response to his work: “Innovative, entirely original, assured work, pushing technical boundaries.” Karklin balances a studio practice between Fort McMurray and Calgary. His current series, Camp Life, explores the culture and displacement surrounding industry work camps.
He begins his labour-intensive work by building miniature models, balancing colour, composition, and relation of objects, perspective and size. He photographs the completed model. Then photographs human models and super-imposes them into the photo of the miniature setting, emphasizing the contrast between figure and space. The completed work is presented as a large-scale photograph.
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"ACAD Alumni Chris Millar + Kristopher Karklin Win Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards"
Alberta College of Art + Design
Chris Millar (painter/sculptor) + Kristopher Karklin (photographer/sculptor) are two of eight Alberta artists who received the 2012 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award on June 14, 2012. Award recipients receive a medal and a $10,000 cash prize.
Kristopher has sold work to Sir Elton John whose response to seeing his work was, ‘I’ll take three.’ The adjudicators’ response to Kristopher's work: “Innovative, entirely original, assured work, pushing technical boundaries.”
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© KRISTOPHER KARKLIN. All rights reserved.