Kelda Martensen is a visual artist working in printmaking, collage, book arts and murals.

Martensen has been an Artist-in-Residence at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France and at Pratt Fine Art Center in Seattle, and is an continuing participant in the Artist Residency in Motherhood, a project organized by social practice artist Lenka Clayton.

Her prints and artist books are in private and public collections including King County, City of Tacoma, Google, Special Collections Library at Washington University in St. Louis, Southern Graphics Council International Archive, Bokartas Contemporary Art Center, Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Studio for the Illustrated Book, University of Missouri and Willamette University.

Martensen is a tenured faculty of art at North Seattle College, where she teaches full time. Her classes include drawing, printmaking, book arts and mural art. Martensen earned a BA in Studio Art from Willamette University and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. She now lives in Seattle, WA.

I am interested in the compression of ideas on and into a paper surface. My hand-printed collages and artist books integrate personal narrative with a more formal curiosity for edges, layers, depth and space. I create texture and color through various printmaking methods including woodblock, drypoint, monotype, lithography, and chine collé. From these prints, I fold, bind, draw, cut and collage to create new compositions. Many of my prints incorporate paper elements that lift beyond the two-dimensional plane.

In recent works, my textures reference the Pacific Northwest landscape, and my childhood experience living with wood and woodworking. With both prints and artist books, collage is at the center of my practice. Collage is a useful tool for it serves as a direct way to manipulate the paper, and to explore the metaphors that arise through the colliding of imagery and collapsing of material qualities.

Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA

King County Public Art Collection, Seattle, WA

Google, Kirkland, WA

City of Tacoma, Portable Works Collection, Tacoma, WA

Special Collections Library, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI

University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO

Willamette University, Salem, OR

Southern Graphics Council International Archive

Bokartas, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania

Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Studio for the Illustrated Book, St. Louis, MO

Benaroya Family, Seattle, WA