Printmaker/Artist

Tan Kar Mern (b.1989) is a printmaker/artist specialising in etching( intaglio), screenprint, relief, and lithography. As someone with Asperger’s Syndrome, she ‘speaks’ through her art. Studying art in the UK helped her enhance her artistic techniques and foster her appreciation of the creative work of many renowned artists. Among others, she draws inspiration from Pirenesi’s prison etching series, Canaletto landscape drawing of buildings, Rembrandt’s play with light and shadow, and Casper Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea Fog. She has displayed her work in galleries and in more than forty exhibitions in the past nine years, locally and in the United Kingdom, Greece, Japan, Germany, USA, Poland, Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea. Her first solo exhibition entitled The Study of Life Adapting to the Chaos of Cityscapes (2018) was at The Refinery Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. Her concern for climate change and her fascination for science fiction movies and brutalist architecture have found expression in her artistic creations. She has also attended residencies during the last few years namely, Summer 2019, ETCH INK workshop and group show in Athens, Greece, 3M Open Studio at HOM Art Trans, Malaysia (2021) and KONNECT ASEAN Chiang Mai Print Residency, Thailand (2023). She holds a Master’s degree in MA Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking (2017), a Bachelor’s Degree in Drawing and Applied Arts (2015) from University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), and a Diploma in Illustration from The One Academy (2012).