A Portfolio of Reduction Woodcut Printmaking by Cathie Crawford
Homage to Hokusai, colour reduction woodcut print on Kitakata handmade Japanese paper
Cathie Crawford is an artist who works in various modes of printmaking, specializing in reduction woodcut printmaking. Through a painstaking process of applying pigment, printing, cutting away wood, and repeating, the artist uncovers images that take an abstracted, ethereal approach to the everyday.
Noumena, reduction woodcut on Nastume 4007 handmade Japanese Kozo paper
I really enjoy the works in Cathy’s series of Non-Objective works. The abstract works in this gallery bring a more intense focus on colour and figure, emphasizing the interactions of abstract forms in space. The artist uses her chosen medium expertly, creating gorgeous gradient backgrounds in warm shades of yellow, pink, teal, and blue, hearkening to the sky running between twilight and dawn, or a rainbow seen reflected through glass.
The media and materials that Cathy uses offer plenty of opportunity for imperfections and happy accidents -- no two works are exactly alike, and as they come together to form a finished work, the materials seem to take on a life and personality of their own, lending a rich sense of depth to each image, figurative or abstract.
