Importing Wisdom: Tibetan Bangdian I

Date 2010
Technique Hand Colored, Mezzotint
Price $900.00
Exhibitor Stone and Press Gallery
Contact the Exhibitor 504-251-3124
ann@stoneandpressgallery.com
Buy From / See At This Exhibitor's Site

hand-colored mezzotint

2010

10 7/8 x 13 1/4

edition: 4 of 25

numbered, titled, and signed in pencil

Tibetans are famed for their centuries-old craftsmanship of woolen weaving, with Bangdian and Kadian as typical representative styles. Bangdian, Tibetan for 'apron' is a kind of woolen fabric very popular among Tibetan women. Wool-spun thread is dyed and woven into strips. When making the fabric, one would piece together the strips into a rectangle, add a layer of lining below it, and two strips to the two ends of the upper part. The fabric is close and delicate and the color is bright, making the apron beautiful and tasteful. The most outstanding character of Bangdian is its contrasting colors. Colors of the same kind are used boldly and arranged ingeniously and harmoniously. Wide strips of some aprons with strongly contrasting colors are displayed together, some narrow strips with the same kinds of colors are combined, and some strips with pure primary colors are inserted into many strips with secondary colors. In terms of disposition, some colors are displayed from dark to light by groups, and some are random without being divided into groups, which results in rough and bright or refined and mild styles. Bangdian used to be worn by married women,but now unmarried girls also like to wear them. On festive and happy occasions, women wear them around their waists, which is like a rainbow wrapping the body. When several women cluster together, it is colorful, delicate and charming. Holly Downing created this mezzotint in 2010 in an edition of 25. Each mezzotint is watercolored by hand and is numbered, dated, titled and signed in pencil. The small edition is just 25.

Holly Downing is a painter and printmaker who has been making mezzotint engravings since the 1970s. She studied painting and printmaking at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the Royal College of Art, London. She lived in the UK for 6 years where she received a National Endowment grant to research and make mezzotints. Her paintings and mezzotints have been exhibited in solo exhibitions in London, Edinburgh, Manila, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz and Berkeley. Her work is in many museum collections including the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale. Images of Holly Downing's work is included in "The Mezzotint, History and Technique", by Carol Wax (Abrams; N.Y. 1990; "Holly Downing, Twenty-five Years of Mezzotints: (2001; Penumbrae): Holly Downing, "Mezzotints and Paintings," Fresno Art Museum, California, (2010).