[Presentation text for the solo show by the same name, Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias - Oviedo, Spain. October 2009]
Yolanda del Riego is one of the best examples we have in Spain of an artist who has chosen paper as the support for their creations. Her profound knowledge of the different qualities of papers and their potential, allows her to create splendid images full of strength and color using techniques such as drawing, watercolor, printmaking, and more recently, using a computer. What’s more, and something that has become quite unusual, she personally performs the entire chalcographic process herself: from the initial idea - what the classic essayists called invention – until each proof is lifted from the plate, each drawing or digital image is finished. She also designs most of her frames, often doing the actual framing itself.
Yolanda del Riego has an innately inquisitive imagination and constantly experiments to discover the potential of each new kind of paper and each new technique. As a result, in her richly diverse body of work we encounter everything from traditional wood engravings to the digital images she creates on a computer. This search for new effects, always within the strictest technical rigor, is what drives her to manipulate and print the plates herself (whichever types they may be: wood, linoleum, copper, zinc, steel), and to create her own digital files. Her collages, constructed of chalcographic print fragments, are also products of printmaking techniques. This approach explains why her editions are so limited in number, and why her prints are so often one-of-a-kind.
The use of a variety of fine handmade papers, an array of drawing, engraving and printing techniques, an astonishing mastery of color, a profound and sincere love for Nature and deep sensitivity, along with the explosive force of the shapes and colors in her work – these are all qualities that characterize the work of this artist. And they are all the result of a vital and lifelong trajectory dedicated to art, driven by a passion for experimentation and continuous learning.
As described in the biographical notes included in this catalog, key to understanding her work, Yolanda del Riego received a solid and coherent training in the United States with regards to artistic creation on paper. It is not often that Fine Art students learn to appreciate the qualities of what will become the fundamental support for their work, the paper. Already in the XVII century, Rembrandt took great care to print his marvelous etchings on different types of paper: papier de chine, Japanese paper, European paper, because he appreciated the subtle differences and qualities that each one could impart to his work. Understanding the response of each type of paper as it reacts to the pigments used to ink the plates is vital to the end result. Yolanda carefully chooses her papers, as evident in the technical descriptions of her works by the broad array of papers used: her own handmade paper, Japanese papers (Goyu, Kochi, Kitakata, Natsume, Sekishu, Shuji Gami, Kozo, Nepal H.M.P.), or European papers (Chrisbrook H.M.P., Twinrocker USA H.M.P., Meirat H.M.P, Arches), etc, most acquired abroad because many of these papers were not readily available in Spain.
This show is a small anthological exhibit of Yolanda del Riego’s works on paper from the 30-year period between 1977 and 2007. It includes drawings, watercolors, prints made using a variety of printmaking techniques, collages of torn prints, and digital images; a total of 47 works in all.
The drawings are, in many cases, complementary or counterpoint to the prints, demonstrating the most lyrical and constrained facet of the work of this artist. In the early drawing, Bird out of the cage (1978, cat. 6) and, more so, Birch Trees (1979, cat. 7), the thick and rough texture of the handmade paper made by the artist plays a fundamental role in the resulting work, contrasting with the delicate strokes of colored pencils.
Throughout her artistic trajectory, Yolanda does relief engravings on both linoleum and wood plates. In the linoleum prints, And there I was (1978, cat.3) and Organic Pattern (2001, cat. 30), separated by quite a long period of time, she shows her ability to extract the qualities this technique offers with regard to clarity of composition and the relief obtained on the paper. In the first of these two works, there is a clear figurative intention, the powerful dark shape in the foreground draws the attention to the distant snow-covered mountain, gliding along the surface of the water in which a red cloud, tinted by the sun, is reflected and whose color balances and softens the strength of the rock-like shape on the left. The plate is made by adjusting several pieces of linoleum, as if a puzzle, and is printed with a single pass through the press. Organic Pattern demonstrates how a composition can be based on lines, with strokes fine or thick, straight or undulated, scallop-edged or spiral shaped, spaced close together or apart, achieving an image that is orderly, yet at the same time full of movement, whose undulations and sparks may bring to mind one of Van Gogh’s works, except for the use of an intense black ink on beige paper, making it a very sober and elegant work.
She carves large wooden plates to create beautiful landscapes: Paisaje con lago (1988, cat. 13), Sun hiding (1991, cat 23) and Confluencia (2002, cat. 31). In these three xylographs, the structure of the composition defined by the engravings is supported and reinforced by color, a fundamental element in the work of Yolanda del Riego. In the print Sun hiding, from 1991, the memory of the sun’s light, as it begins to hide, illuminates the Alaskan mountains covering them with thousands of colors and enabling their reflection to be seen at the bottom of the print.
But in general, her works are the result of combining multiple techniques to create a large variety of textures in a single print, as in the case of Scenery for a Storm (1990, cat. 19), in which she obtains gorgeous effects by combining numerous carved wooden plates cut into the individual shapes from which she builds the composition. The print has a notable relief, with dry-point lines roaming across the surface of the image, undulating or zigzagging, converging or floating, with the dyed Japanese paper having a fundamental role in the final work.
This show includes various etchings from the seventies and eighties, in which the spontaneity that will characterize the work of Yolanda are already present: the strength of color as in Pensamientos (cat. 2) and Nocturno (cat.12) or, through the use of deep sugar-lift etching, where she seeks to depict the textures of Alaska illuminated by the sun in Frozen Surface (cat. 5). Excellent examples of how a single plate can render two very different images, depending on how the plate is inked, are two etchings from 1990: Hoja de carbayo and Robledal con niebla (cat. 17a y 17b). (This zinc plate was rolled with a soft ground to capture the texture of oak leaves covered by a net and lines drawn with a needle, and then etched).
But, as already mentioned, the signature characteristic of Yolanda del Riego’s work is her use of paper which she has manipulated by using the press, hand-dying, folding, wrinkling or cutting up, resulting in spectacular compositions full of strength and brilliance of color, as seen in Composition number 5 and 7 in red and green (cat. 8 and 9); in other examples, like in Changing Time Zone (cat. 10), the appearance of movement by the overlapped shapes making up the composition (wallpaper, fragments of other dyed papers, the imprint of a punched zinc plate, etc) give the impression of wanting to escape from the limits of the paper. The challenge of this method of work is that, until the print is pulled off the plate at the etching press, the outcome is uncertain; in the words of the artist, "art is adventure; and if not, it’s not worth it".
In the early nineties she produces a series of works that demonstrate her mastery of the use of dyed and manipulated Japanese papers on which she prints plates (woodcuts or etchings or dry-points). The exquisite beauty of works such as Bosque en peligro de extinción (cat. 21), Día gris y húmedo (cat. 27), Viento del Norte and Starting from anywhere (cat. 24a y 24b) are all evidence of this expertise. In the same way a musician creates their compositions using harmonies or contrasting notes, Yolanda uses techniques and materials to create hers.
In 1993 she begins to make collages using fragments of her own torn or cut-up prints. The predominance of brown hues brings to mind the colors of the autumn forest ground, as in Los senderos se cruzan (cat. 25) and Winter Landscape (cat. 26).
While Nature has always been present in the works of Yolanda del Riego, starting in the late nineties to the present it becomes the leitmotiv of her creations. Found not only in etchings such as Romantic Rendering of a forest (cat.28), measuring almost 2 meters in width, but also in the India ink washes: Ritmo de la mar (cat.32), Reflejo (cat. 33), Momento en la ría (cat. 34), Alga (cat.36) and Orange and Black (cat. 37), where she has combined India ink with watercolor on thin delicate papers. The papers absorb the water and ink, blending together to create images full of lyricism impregnated with sadness caused by the terrible environmental disaster of the Prestige oil-spill off the Galician coast. In Chapapote (cat. 35) she also uses a wood cut plate to make this monoprint. In Percepción del rojo (cat. 39), soaking the paper, using inks with gum arabic, the extra viscosity makes a visible image in both sides of the paper.
Once she has achieved what she wanted from a technique, the artist renews her search for new areas of experimentation. In 2005, perhaps due to a circumstantial event like the fire that destroyed the Windsor tower (a high-rise building across the street from her home in Madrid), she begins to manipulate digital photos – specifically, the ones she took of the fire. In the series Arde el Windsor, followed by another series titled Desmontaje she experiments with the almost infinite possibilities for combining colors and shapes to create digital images.
The inquisitive nature of Yolanda surfaces once again and, combined with her love and concern for the conservation of Nature, gives birth to the spectacular Lambda print on polyester, Entrada al bosque (cat. 38),in which you can hardly make out the original base image, a photograph of a forest trail near Seattle, WA. And the series titled Fluir, (cat. 42), based on drawings she created on the island of Arosa, distressed by the remains of oil that spilled from the Prestige. This series, printed on Hahnemülle paper in the United States by Tod Gangler of Art & Soul, Seattle, WA, is complemented by a video produced by the artist, in which the animated digital images are accompanied by thoughts and reflections that express Yolanda’s anguish of the continued destruction of Nature by man; of that very Nature which is the source of her inspiration, and that has always been present in her life and in her work.