Anita Nita 似たPrintmaker, April 2017
In my early 20s, in homage to visual art, I went Tunis chasing the colour and imagery of Paul Klee. The next year I returned to the Sahara carrying stacks of papers and crayons, from Timbuktu to Niger, intent on depicting the clear light and wide skies. Instead I fell ill, and found myself in a bush hospital in Mali, cared for by Chinese healthcare workers who dispensed herbal tablets. How foolish I had been to choose art over health! I vowed to make “natural medicine” my core discipline, and went to Japan to learn the magic cures of traditional acupuncture, and kampō. In 2013, having chased “health and longevity” as foolishly as I once did art, I came back to printmaking.
These current pieces are between the solid processes of the intaglio print and the wide-eyed imagery of student protest movements. My core interest is portraying motion and transition in our world where nothing sits still, nor are things formed quite as remembered.
Those who own a piece of my current work comment:
“. . .the cat from Along the 284 is so close I can feel his breath”. J S, Cambridge
“ . . the tactility of my piece (Perils of Life on the Road) is pure pornography, and I wish it were cleaner.” B Chase, NY
The first series, Catford Rocks! presents aspects of a local neighbourhood which –seen daily –are easily overlooked.
The second series becomes more political; Perils of Life on the Road portrays desolation. The figure, a non-human form –unidentified by race, religion, gender, or economic status –sits alienated and vulnerable on the highway.