Printmaking Residencies in China 2017

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Printmaking Workshop in Guanlan

Artist in Residency in China

International Print Workshop, Guanlan
1–18 September 2017

International Printmaking Exhibition & Conference, Dunhuang
18–21 September 2017

International Print Workshop, Tianjin
21 September – 16 October 2017

I am invited in the International Print Workshop – Guanlan Original Printmaking Base & Artist in Residency Tianjin, near Beijing in China. Here I have to create woodblock prints and to participate in art activities.

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Printmaking Workshop in Guanlan

In Guanlan I have been with my wife Roberta in January-February of 2011. We arrived in Guanlan before Christmas in 2010. Here we had the possibility to see how chines people celebrate Christmas, New Year and chines Spring Festival. That was very impressive. Between all celebrations, we had to participate in many openings of printmaking exhibitions and other culture events. After the Residency, we were traveling alone to Guilin and after by boat to Yangshuo.

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My studio in Guanlan

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Artist’s village in Guanlan at night

It is not so easy to create in the country with such long history and such impressive culture. Printmaking in China has very long and deep traditions like all arts. The main printmaking technology in China and oldest in the world – woodcut. They love woodcuts, they have many schools of making it, they have many different tradition of cutting and printing it. Children learn art, calligraphy and printmaking in each ordinary primary school. In the printmaking exhibitions and workshops you can see how old traditional technique of woodcut mixed with new thinking way, with our days’ reality. Printmaking in China is different from the understanding it in the West.

: information on the sreet

: Wood blocks

: Silkscreen

: Fragment of woodcut

: Fragment of silkscreen

: Etching

: Wood block

: Coloured woodcut

: Artist and master near new print

So this time I came here not only to create “my” prints and artist’s books, but to learn more about printmaking in East, in China. To learn why they love to create prints, what themes are interesting for them, why they use so many different wood cutting styles, how they use the chines printmaking technologies for printing wood, etching or silkscreen.