Cynthia Back
Cynthia Back
Cynthia Back was born in St. Louis, Missouri and currently lives outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She earned a BFA at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and a post-graduate certificate at St. Martin’s School of Art in London, England. Cynthia has exhibited widely both in the U.S. and internationally. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including grants from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation; residencies and fellowships to The Studios at Key West; The Artists Centre Dale, Norway; The Women’s Studio Workshop, Blue Mountain Center, Acadia National Park; The Ballinglen Arts Foundation Ltd., Ireland, Fundacion Valparaiso, Spain, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, The Cill Rialaig Project, Ireland, and The MacDowell Colony. Her work is included in private and corporate collections including The Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Newark Public Library, the Free Library of Philadelphia, The New-York Historical Society, and The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
My artwork celebrates landscape. I am immersed in nature: from a window, walking in it, standing and listening to its sounds, watching shadows and colors dance across water and foliage. The series "Key Mangroves" was done during a residency at the Studios of Key West where I focused on the trees and shrubs that protect the islands. The nine prints in the series "South West Coast Path" follow a walk I did along the English Channel in late 2017.
My attraction to printmaking comes from a fascination with the many ways I am able to play with images, determining the appropriate processes, juxtaposing shapes and colors, and changing the feel of my work by the aesthetic choices I make. I love the discipline of the reduction relief printmaking process (also known as the “suicide print”) and the surprises which come with each layering of color. The physicality of carving woodblocks, rolling ink, and the repetition of printing become meditative. Each print has from 10 to 25 colors, in opaque and transparent form, and acquires a physicality of layers.
