Belinda Dahan-Bouchard (BB)

Bio

 

Initially trained as a painter and etcher, BB went on to complete an MFA at Bath Spa University in Contemporary Fine Art where her practice included sculpture and video.  BB taught at Downside School in Somerset where she was Head of Art for many years.  Now that she is able to pursue her own work as an artist at Bath Artist Printmakers, she is presently experimenting with a very painterly type of printing called a monotype (a one off).  Trips to the Prado Museum when BB was ten years old (and living in Madrid) proved highly influential in the way that she sees the World and she counts Goya, Velazquez and Bosch as the artists that have fascinated her most.  However in recent years Antoni Tàpies and Robert Motherwell have challenged her earlier preferences. 

 

Artist Statement:

As a young student at art college, I found that having an idea for a work was the hardest part.  Now I allow the idea to emerge from the image.  I don’t try so hard to start with the idea but instead see where the work leads me, both visually and conceptually.  Most of my current work is abstract, although occasionally figurative images, often quite surreal or symbolic, find themselves on my printing plate. Monotype printing is ideally suited to this experimental approach and it is great fun seeing how progressive layers of ink change the colours and dynamics of the layers already printed.