Layered Impressions: Exploring Print Techniques with Kirtika Kain

Next date: Saturday, 29 August 2026 | 10:00 AM to 02:30 PM

Kirtika Kain in her studio at Parramatta Artists' Studios, 2024, photo by Garry Trinh.

Join us for an intensive print making workshop led by featured artist Kirtika Kain.

Inspired by Kain’s exhibition ‘Pitch’, this immersive 3.5 hour workshop invites participants to explore printmaking as an alchemical process of layering, transfer, and transformation. Drawing on Kain’s material language, where gold, tar, and turmeric carry histories of labour, ritual, and cultural memory, participants will experiment with surface, texture, and imprint to create their own luminous printed works.

Participants will develop layered compositions using a combination of inks, gold leaf, and textured materials. Through guided exercises, the workshop will introduce techniques of mono print acetate, drypoint, chine colle, and lino, echoing Kain’s approach where surfaces act interchangeably as both plate and print. Participants will explore processes such as overprinting, resist, and casting impressions to build depth and complexity in their work, discovering new techniques and ways of working with materials beyond conventional printmaking approaches.

Attention will be given to the cultural and material significance of the workshop’s components, how substances like gold and pigment hold embedded histories, and how artistic processes can extend and reframe these meanings. Participants will be encouraged to think about their own relationship to materials, memory, and transformation.

A light lunch will be provided in the 1 hour break, offering time to pause, connect, and reflect with fellow participants in a relaxed, creative environment.

By the end of the session, each participant will produce a print that reflects an evolving, archive-like process where each layer records a history of making. No prior printmaking experience is required.

Key Learning Outcomes: