Acuático
Artist name
Artist year born
1925
Artwork make date
1960
Artwork title translation
Aquatic
Artwork material
woodcut
paper flecked with gold
paper flecked with gold
Artwork dimensions
height: 33.5cm
width: 39cm
width: 39cm
Artwork type (categories)
Print
Accession method
Donated by Lotte Schulz 1996
Accession number
56-1996
Label text
Like Olga Blinder, Lotte Schulz also studied printing under Lívio Abramo at the Julián de la Herrería Print Workshop in Asunción, which he founded in 1957. She often uses subjects taken from the animal world to explore the abstract nature of organic forms and the textual possibilities of woodcut. Acuático is part of her Piscis (Pisces) series and shows three rudimentary fish forms intersecting and overlapping each other and the background to suggest the fluid and shimmering nature of their aquatic world. This sense is enhanced by the use of delicate translucent paper flecked with gold.
(Display caption from the exhibition <i>Southern Press: Prints from Brazil, Paraguay and Chile</i>, firstsite, 2011-2012)
Ian Dudley, 2011
This delicate woodcut, part of the Piscis series, is typical of Schulz's work. The bodies of the fish are rendered as a series of ovate forms that overlap to create a pattern that is both abstract geometry and also, unmistakably a series of darting fish. The mathematical precision of these forms contrasts with the undulations of the watery backgrounds, meticulously rendered in three different textures: the speckled black and white area, more turbulent and arbitrary than the bodies of the fish but still glittering and scaly in effect, and two much smoother fields, suggestive of slow moving water. The use of translucent paper flecked with gold reinforces the suggestion of a sparkling watery world.
Schulz repeatedly explores the abstract qualities of organic forms. She takes an apparently simple motif - in this case a fish, simplifies it to a perfect geometrical shape, and then experiments with different surfaces textures and tonal densities, combining curving and rectilinear forms, to create works of art that are both flat patterns and three-dimensional representations. Her woodcut technique is entirely manual. Instead of a printing press she just uses the pressure and warmth of her hands, often with the help of an agate burnishing tool.
Valerie Fraser
(Display caption from the exhibition <i>Southern Press: Prints from Brazil, Paraguay and Chile</i>, firstsite, 2011-2012)
Ian Dudley, 2011
This delicate woodcut, part of the Piscis series, is typical of Schulz's work. The bodies of the fish are rendered as a series of ovate forms that overlap to create a pattern that is both abstract geometry and also, unmistakably a series of darting fish. The mathematical precision of these forms contrasts with the undulations of the watery backgrounds, meticulously rendered in three different textures: the speckled black and white area, more turbulent and arbitrary than the bodies of the fish but still glittering and scaly in effect, and two much smoother fields, suggestive of slow moving water. The use of translucent paper flecked with gold reinforces the suggestion of a sparkling watery world.
Schulz repeatedly explores the abstract qualities of organic forms. She takes an apparently simple motif - in this case a fish, simplifies it to a perfect geometrical shape, and then experiments with different surfaces textures and tonal densities, combining curving and rectilinear forms, to create works of art that are both flat patterns and three-dimensional representations. Her woodcut technique is entirely manual. Instead of a printing press she just uses the pressure and warmth of her hands, often with the help of an agate burnishing tool.
Valerie Fraser
Last updated date
2008