 |
 |
Maryland Printmakers
|
This Article Is Archived From March, 2000 To See The Current Issue, Click Here |
||
| FEATURED ARTIST: GRACE WAHNISH | ||
 |
||
|
Grace Wahnish's Workers #6, Screenprint |
||
|
I was introduced to printmaking in
1985, when I first learned to make woodcuts. I knew right away that this was the
medium I wanted in order to best express what I had in mind. I learned
that images that I felt were my own would suddenly emerge from the
block as I worked on the routine of cutting. The surprise accidents
that printmaking techniques provide can be an inspiration to any
artist. I have worked in every engraving technique that has let me
explore the quality of surface textures, particularly using
collagraphs. I now find that serigraphy, with its possibilities of
integrating several processes, enables me most accurately to express
my personal vision. Lately I have been capturing through my camera lens the people and the daily reality of my city, this big Buenos Aires. I digitalize my images, then photocopy them (by Xeroxing them), and transfer them to a photosensitive screen. I then print them in limited editions, usually in black and white.
For me, every aspect of my art represents the empathy I feel for the drama of existence of oppressed man. Through the process of photographing, drawing, cutting and pasting, and transforming my images into print impressions, I live and translate the misery, suffering, ignorance, unemployment, poverty, madness hunger and anger of people. It is necessary to show political reality, and how this reality changes us. I feel the challenge of being conscious of injustice, inequality, abuses of power, and exploitation. Over the years my images have become darker and full of double meanings and messages. They are raw and lonely, expressing the impossibility of being isolated, even while isolated. There is the knowledge that there is no salvation through individualism; that only solidarity, hands kindly given to each other as a form of clever self-salvation, can be redemption. Even with this cruelty, this unmerciful glance, the message is full of irony, but also of hope, trusting in the ability of humans to separate the accessorial from the important, the trivial from the basic. Grace Wahnish was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She received her Fine Arts degree in 1989, specializing in printmaking, from the National Art School “Prilidiano Pueyrredon.” She has been a teacher in the school since then. In 1998 she received the Borges Cultural Center Scholarship arranged by the National Secretary of Culture. Her latest exhibition was in the Museum of Fine Art of Lujan with the “Nets” project. Since 1987 she has exhibited in international and local group shows in Spain, Japan, Panama, Cuba, Italy, Germany, and the USA. |
