Biography

Gea Karhof was born in Wieringen, the Netherlands and attended the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. In her hand-coloured etchings, she combine the imagery of her many travels with the heroes of the comic strips of her youth. She has had numerous solo exhibitions in the Netherlands and participated in group-shows all over the world. Two books have been published about her work: Etsen als ontdekkingsreis (Etching as an explorer’s journey) and Grenzeloze Grafiek (Printmaking without borders).

Since 1991 Gea Karhof and Nan Mulder have been travelling together. In 2008 they won the WAGON Award (Women Artists’ Group of Nepal) for the valuable role played in building brighter futures for artists in Nepal.

Illustrated Talk

Double Vision
Since 1991 Dutch printmakers Nan Mulder and Gea Karhof have been travelling together. Armed with our drawing books, cameras and the Lonely Planet guide, they travelled to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal and Bhutan.

During their first trip to Nepal in 2004 they came in contact with two Nepalese printmakers. The country was going through a difficult phase. The Maoist regularly instigated strikes, forbidding even cars and buses on the roads. When they had to spend much longer in Kathmandu than planned, they decided to explore the contemporary art world, and through the Siddhartha Gallery in Kathmandu got to know the printmakers Ragini Upadhyay and Seema Sharma Shah. In their studios they saw the familiar etching presses, smelled ink and turpentine and found that they were not only linked through technique, but also through a similar vision in their work. This is how Double Vision was born: originally a travelling exhibition of two Dutch and two Nepalese printmakers looking at Asia from different points of views. The exhibition was to follow the route Nan Mulder and Gea Karhof had travelled: starting in Edinburgh, where Nan lives (2007), then travelling to Haarlem, Netherlands (2008), and ending in the Siddhartha Gallery in Kathmandu (2008). Since then the exhibition has also been shown in Antwerp (Belgium), Eefde (the Netherlands) and in January 2013 in Islamabad (Pakistan). What originally started as an exhibition has now become a group. In 2013 the Pakistani printmakers Atif Khan and Zaira Ahmad Zaka joined the original four artists. This is a continuing project. Nan Mulder and Gea Karhof will talk about the project and the impact of these exchanges and friendships on the life and work of the artists involved.

Exhibition

Double Vision
The exhibition Double Vision shown at IMPACT is a selection of the original exhibition of prints by Ragini Upadhyay, Seema Sharma Shah from Nepal, Gea Karhof from the Netherlands, Nan Mulder from Scotland and Atif Khan and Zaira Ahmad Zaka from Pakistan. The work shows how Asia and Europe have influenced the artists and how these cross-cultural exchanges have impacted on their prints. Nan Mulder and Gea Karhof met in 1968 while studying printmaking at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and have been travelling together since 1991. This exhibition supplements their illustrated about the origin of the Double Vision exhibition and group and its continuing evolution and showings in Europe and Asia.