PRINTMAKING
“I choose printmaking as a means of expression for its possibilities, peculiarities and special effects it offers.”
Yolanda del Riego’s love of printmaking as a means of expression is key to understanding her work across all mediums. (See Biographical Notes — Yolanda del Riego.)
"That Yolanda del Riego’s work is created using printmaking methods is, or should be, something merely informative. The same thing applies to the support used: Japanese paper, in many instances with a translucency that enables a work to be viewed from both sides. These are all techniques that she has dominated for years as her exhibition history reminds us."
—Joseph Garnería, Catalog text for the exhibition “Exploring the Limits of Paper”, 1996 [English translation]
On this page: MONOPRINTS | PRINT EDITIONS | PRINT COLLAGE
MONOPRINTS
“I’m not interested in creating multiples because I don’t believe that a technique [printmaking] should represent limits.”
A "multiple" is a work of art designed to have more than one original. Common examples are works produced from plates (such as prints) or negatives (such as photographs).
Monoprints are “…the most painterly method among the printmaking techniques, monoprints and monotypes are essentially printed paintings. The characteristic of these methods is that no two prints are alike.” (“Monoprints VS Monotypes. What is the difference?”, monoprints.com)
Monoprints have always been one of Yolanda del Riego's preferred means of expression. Early in her career, during her studies with Dr. Jules Heller (Dean, College of Fine Arts, Arizona State University) at the Visual Arts Center of Alaska, she learned to see printmaking as a vehicle of self-expression in and of itself, rather than as a method for making multiples.
See also: Monoprint Collections, All Printmaking Collections
PRINT EDITIONS
“The act of printmaking must be free... when I’m inking [a plate], I cannot resign myself to repeating exactly what I have already done. I need to see a new image, to feel the emotion while pulling the print from the plate.”
Yolanda del Riego’s editions have small print runs (between 15 and 35; rarely 50) and, in general, without having printed the entire edition. Most of them are "evolving editions" in which each print is different—the result of variations made by YR while inking and printing. In print editions produced in ateliers, it is the technicians who carry out the processes of inking and printing, They follow a bon à tirer (good to pull) proof approved by the artist to the smallest detail in order to produce identical prints.
