2015 Printmaking Survey of the Los Angeles River

Alex Fridrich, LA River Path, Copper etching with aquatint

Hello Printmakers,

Christian Ward here to feature this amazing copper etching by Alex Fridrich. I found this work at Self Help Graphics in Boyle Heights. This is one of seven prints in a portfolio trade created in the  Professional Printmaking Program at Self Help. In the summer of 2015 Self Help organized seven printmakers to create an edition with the LA River as its theme. The edition, or portfolio trade was called 2015 Printmaking Survey of the LA River, each artist pulled an edition of thirty prints. The prints were traded amongst each other as well as sold at openings in Boyle Heights and downtown Long Beach.

My favorite print in the trade was by Alex Fridrich: LA River Path, copper etching with aquatint. Fridrich was born in Stockton, California in 1988. She received her BFA in printmaking from Cal State Long Beach in 2011. Fridrich is a local artist and printmaker in Long Beach. She practices a variety of printmaking mediums and loves to explore ideas of place and family history. Alex Fridrich is also co-founder of The Collective print studio, a small printmaking shop and gallery in downtown Long Beach. 

All of the prints in the show were 11" X 15" so I would say these were all medium sized prints. The mark-making and line work in LA River Path  is amazing to explore with my eye as I go from scene to scene in the composition. The aquatint method, a technique that gives the copper plate tonal variation, breaks up the "panoramic" composition nicely. The print is black and white but this is not detracting; the strength seems to be in the variety of grays and contrast between black and white. 

Fridrich seems fascinating by these intimate and surprising encounters she has made during bike rides up the river to downtown Los Angeles. I enjoy the mashed-up composition where scenes along the river exist at the same occurrence. The "panoramic" composition points to the act of remembering. The artist speaks to our organization of space and sense landscape through experience. Scene after scene seems to accumulate into the artists idea of her surroundings.

Cheers,

Christian Ward

Other prints in 2015 Printmaking Survey of the Los Angeles River:

Usen Gandara, The River of Los Angeles with its Plants and Animals, Linoleum relief print, 2015

Poli Marchial, Frogtown, Linocut, woodcut, chine colle and digital print, 2015

Kimiko Miyoshi, Big Gulp at Glendale Narrows, Viscosity collagraph, 2015

Miyo Stevens, Natural History: Los Angeles River, 1938 with Elderberry, Mugwort and Mulefat, 

4-color woodcut

Christian Ward, Up the River from Golden Shore to DTLA, Silkscreen, etching and linocut, 2015

Alvaro D. Marquez, Avenue 60 Bridge, 3-color linoleum cut reduction, 2015