The African-American artist Kara Walker has an unmistakable signature style: creating vast figure compositions using a cutout-silhouette technique. She uses this to create all kinds of images that teem with references to the evil history of racism in America. On a technical level, you're always seeing bold contrasts of forms framed by white space. Walker has tried this out in many media (paintings, drawings, shadow puppet shows, books), including etching. And here is a photo I took of a big etching of hers that I saw in the Tucson Museum of Art a few months ago:
I had to take the photo at an angle to avoid the reflections on the glass. The subject matter is a little more mythical and less easy to interpret than much of her work. Perhaps it represents a group of black people pulling a goddess-like figure with African features out of the ocean, in recognition of their pre-slavery ancestry. from the pint of view of a printmaker, one can see how well the aquatint technique is suited to Kara walker's style, in the way it makes an intensely deep and rich shade of black that you can't really get in any other medium.
Walker undoubtedly had the assistance of a master printer to make this, but nevertheless, look at the range of tones in this print: the white of the stopped out (unetched) areas, the three or four shade of grey, the spitbite tones in the sky, all the way through to that deep, deep black of the goddess figure.
In a close-up, you can see all that more clearly, as well as the drypoint accents around the clouds:
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| Kara Walker, Resurrection Story, etching, aquatint, spitbite, drypoint |
Walker undoubtedly had the assistance of a master printer to make this, but nevertheless, look at the range of tones in this print: the white of the stopped out (unetched) areas, the three or four shade of grey, the spitbite tones in the sky, all the way through to that deep, deep black of the goddess figure.
In a close-up, you can see all that more clearly, as well as the drypoint accents around the clouds:
