Intaglio, for me, is a drawing-based medium which enhances the poetic potential of line and tone. Because the inked lines in etchings, drypoints and engravings are embossed, and have a literal three-dimensional depth, they are capable of qualities that cannot be achieved in any other medium. I work mostly, though not exclusively, in drypoint, drawing directly on copper plates with a diamond-point needle, which allows me to achieve a wide variation of line-- from a delicate shimmering silver to a velvet black-- as compared with the relatively uniform line achieved with acid-based etching. I like to draw Insects, birds and small delicate creatures which are in constant movement and full of fleeting expression. Temporality, joy, humor, struggle, uncertainty and transcendence are all experiences I try to transmit in my prints. --- Amy Georgia Buchholz, 2019
Critical commentary:
*"To encapsulate vast macrocosmic power into a microcosmic fragment of nature seems to be the signature ability of Amy Buchholz as seen in her prints. Her work may be intimate in scale both in format and subject, yet reveals the power and life-force of the larger natural world... Whether insect or birds, a vitality pulsates throughout these images as a result of the artist's synthesis of seeing, feeling, and drawing that results in expressive form. In choosing to endow these small creatures with such grandeur recalls to mind the Latin phrase, multum in parvo: that there is much in little." --- William Behken, 2016 * From the catalog: Atelier Four, published by Hamilton College in 2016. Bill Behnken is a master printmaker, who has long taught at the City College of New York as well as at the Art Students League. He is a member of the National Academy of Design and the Society of American Graphic Artists.