monca is proud to present the work of Herlinde Spahr's After the Storms, on view from Thursday, June 25th, 2026 through Sunday, August 8th, 2026.
Join us for the opening reception celebrating the exhibitions at monca on Friday, June 26th, 2026 from 6-8PM. This will be a joint reception with The Ridge Tapestries - A Community’s Story exhibit. Admission to opening receptions is free for all and the museum bar will be open for beverage purchases. Learn more about the exhibitions below.
Exhibit Statement
The Museum of Northern California Art will be featuring the work of Herlinde Spahr, a native of Belgium, in a solo exhibition spanning the years from 2013 to 2023, a period during which she moved away from the lithographic stone to work on large panels of Formica that feature a grain and hardness similar to limestone. This uncommon material allowed her to create work fusing painting and printmaking techniques, employing litho inks and oil paint, tusche and stencils, litho pencils, graphite dust, and incorporating manière noire and delicate engraving. Spahr now uses the lithographic levigator, intended to resurface the stone, to scarify and mar the surface. This decade of work, some 48 panels, also marks the period when the artist’s frequent episodes of mania went into remission. Spahr borrows images from the natural world to visualize an otherworldly experience. This exhibition, entitled After the Storms. From Hemlock to Lotus, captures a journey culminating in the five panels of Rising from Darkness. The Lotus. About working in black and white, Spahr states: “A printmaker moves between the extremes of soot and soul, between the stain of ink and transcendence. The journey is through a landscape of carbon and soot, with the triumphant soul captured in the grime of ink.”
The series in progress was featured in a solo exhibition, The Precipice Within, at the Monterey Museum of Art in 2021.
Spahr has published a book documenting the full cycle: Herlinde Spahr, After the Storms. Work from 2013 to 2023. With Excerpts from the Artist’s Notebooks. Lithium Press. (Blurb.com)
About the Artist
Herlinde Spahr was born in Antwerp, Belgium and came to California to pursue a graduate degree in Comparative Literature at UCBerkeley. Parallel to her studies she taught herself stone lithography in a small studio on campus. By the time she graduated she had become a master lithographer, printing and exhibiting her own work. Foregoing an academic career, she set up her studio, Lithium Press, in Orinda, California. Her lithographs have been collected by numerous museums.
David Acton, in his book 60 years of American Printmaking, 1947-2007 states: Technical finesse, an open attitude to the creative process, and deeply personal subject matter are typical of the works of Herlinde Spahr.
Sally Patterson Tubach, at the end of her review, Demons Transfigured: Herlinde Spahr’s “After the Storms” concludes: “In bridging inner and outer worlds, Spahr transfigures her demons and reconciles her own inner turmoil by creating striking works of art for us. In After the Storms, we are fortunate to witness the processes that fuel this unique and extraordinary artist. (Journal of the Print World, vol. 49, #1, page 14)
