'Best in Show' Footprint International Winner

How very exciting! I just learned that I'm the winner of the 'Best in Show' award at the Footprint International Competition at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, Connecticut. Two of my prints - Return and Waving Goodbye - were selected by Juror Elisabeth Hodermansky, Sutphin Family Senior Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, Photographs at the Yale University Art Gallery. To see all the winners, please go the website of the CCP.

Return

Return.
Triple-Plate Copper Etching, Chine-Collé. 
30cm x 30cm. 2014.

I've had this image in my head ever since my trip home to Paraguay last year. Yes, I still call Paraguay home (one of them at least). This was the first time I was staying in the house of my childhood again and I was surprised how much at home I still felt with my surroundings. One of my most cherished memories are the neon-green, cheerful and loving parakeets nibbling at the beautiful, hand-sized blossoms of the bottle tree at my aunt's place, my favourite holiday destination. Bottle trees absorb water into their soft wood (very important in an arid region) and store the moisture in their ever expanding trunks, which they then protect from animals with giant spikes, forming a protected sanctuary. We used to have a bottle tree in our yard under which we often played growing up. I'm not entirely sure what the image means, but in many ways the trip was about returning home and returning to the roots of my childhood (even if I had to leave again). This piece is an addition to my autobiographical series exploring imagery about home and belonging.
This was my first triple plate print (light red, green, and black). I had a lot of fun playing with the soap ground again creating a more lively, less flat background with a more washy look.