International Printmakers

ANNU VERTANEN Wandering black lines, lyrically circling around one another Annu Vertanen originally studied painting, but after graduation, graphic art increasingly began to interest her. In a workshop with Karen Kunc, she found the “means by which it was possible to place a painter’s personality into a woodcut so perfectly that brushes and canvases could be abandoned completely.” Today, Vertanen and Kunc are among the most noted artists in the world working with woodcuts.

Vertanen exploits empty space with a refined visual and conceptual vocabulary. Allowing marks plenty of room to breathe, she focuses on the points of “intersect between two-dimensional print and spatial analysis.” Her abstract images contain wandering black lines, lyrically circling in and around one another. Enclosures are often punctuated with random—and at the same time deliberate—dots of bright translucent color. These “routes or tracks” as she calls them, are actually derived from her observation of human movement—emotional as well as physical.

Vertanen was born in Imatra, Finland, and studied art at the Kankaanpää Art School, Lahti Art School, and University of Art and Design in Helsinki. Finnish printmakers are known worldwide for their experimentation and innovation in the techniques of printmaking. Such is the case for Vertanen who spent time in Japan mastering mokuhanga (the ancient method of printing with water-based inks). Vertanen has received accolades from numerous European biennials and foundations including: Masters of Graphic Art, Drawing and Graphic Biennial, Györ, Hungary (2009); Hungarian Graphic Artists’ Society and of the Foundation for Hungarian Graphic Art, Györ, Hungary (2003), Inter Kontakt Grafik, Prague, Czech Republic (200); and the Kaliningrad Biennale of the Baltic Sea Countries (2000).