In honor of Ansei Uchima, my Printmaking Instructor at SLC from September 1969 to June 1972, I have selected two of my favorite intaglio etching prints to feature. These are part of a larger series created while I was his student, shown in a Retrospective Printmaking Exhibit at the Ottawa School of Art in Ontario, Canada, between mid-November to mid-December 2023, Titled: “50 Plus Years in the Making”.
Narcissus
“Narcissus” who, in ancient tales, perpetuated as myths from Greek to modern interpretations, looked into a pool of water and became entranced with one’s own reflection, as in a mirror. Here the reflection extends outward from an earthly pool of water to the body of a woman, pregnant with a fetal child developing to be born out of the inner darkness of a physical womb, as the left, introspective yin eye of a larger form, like what is sometimes seen as the image of “the man in the moon” … though in my interpretation “Luna”, the moon as a feminine expression. The nose to mouth depicts the legends of a manifestation of a God descending as a giant bird form mating with an earthly prone woman. The right eye, mirrored, as a being transformed into reflective light, in the infinity of the space of the universe.
Autumn
Depicting my favourite space to rest and reflect on the SLC campus, along the hillside path leading down to Bates Dining Hall. I would recline on the large rock to merge with its supportive surfaces, while I looked up through the changing colors of autumn leaves. The zinc plate was etched in the Fall of 1969 to 1970, though only a few Artist's Copy prints were completed while I was a student. More than 50 years later, in the Fall of 2023, I completed printing an Edition of 25 Intaglio etchings in shades of brown to black oil-based inks.
