Edutainment > Emiko Aida - Aquatints

Aquatint, 1999

Emiko Aida
The Quest
copyright Emiko Aida

Emiko Aida is a painter and printmaker who lives and works in London. She was born and trained in arts in Japan. Ms. Aida's work is connected with water in the most different forms. Her aquatints and woodblock prints show people in public swimming pools or under an umbrella while rain is pouring down from the skies. Works by Emiko Aida are exhibited worldwide and are in the New York Public Library.

Statement by Emiko Aida

"Emiko Aida is a painter-printmaker living in London. She was born in Jindajii, Tokyo, a town with a Japanese temple dedicated to the Water God. Water is worshipped there, and growing up, Emiko was surrounded by wetlands, streams and rivers. Her family even had a well in their kitchen."

"Emiko's artistic outpourings show a quest to return to her roots. Living now in a London she finds arid, her images show a search for a more humid atmosphere. Her watery world, pictured in her etchings and paintings, is a place where she feels at home. She finds water to be the element she most strongly connects to both spiritually and emotionally."

"Her works are the visual equivalent of the Haiku, the Japanese 17 syllable verse. She invites the viewer to use their imagination and engage with her imagery: dew, raindrops, rainstorms and rain-drenched flowers."

Education and Qualifications

Aquatint, 2007

Emiko Aida
The Red Umbrella
copyright Emiko Aida

• 1978-1982 - BA Fine Art, The Tokyo University of Art and Design, Japan.
• 1982-1984 - MA Fine Art, The Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music (Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku), Japan.
• 1984-1985 - Graduate School, The Tokyo National University of Fine Art and Music, Japan.
• 1987-1989 - MA Printmaking, Royal College of Art, UK.

Affiliations

• Member of Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, UK.
• Greenwich Printmakers, UK.
• South Bank Printmakers, UK.

Exhibitions and Collections

Her work is exhibited in over 10 galleries through out the U.K., USA and Japan and in many private, public and corporate collections including the New York Public Library.

Awards

• 1982 and 1983 - Japan University of Printmaking Purchase Prize, Tokyo.
• 1989 - L'Escargot Restaurant Award in Royal College of Art, London.
• 1997 - The Nordstern Award in Royal Academy of Arts, London.
• 1998 and 1999 - Coley & Tiley Prize RBSA, Birmingham.

Teachings by Emiko Aida

Aquatint, 2007

Emiko Aida
The Tamed Kong
copyright Emiko Aida

Emiko Aida is teaching etching and Japanese wood-block printmaking at The Hampstead School of Art and participated in Florence biennial 2007.

Printmaking Techniques Used

Emiko Aida works in traditional Japanese woodblock prints. But her favorite technique is aquatint. Aquatint allows the printing of whole areas rather than just lines. Thus aquatint is for Emiko Aida an ideal technique to show water.

Aquatint Technique

The following section is an explanation by Ms. Emiko Aida of the aquatint technique and how she uses it.

"Aquatint is a printing technique similar to etching. In etching the metal plate is waxed and the image is drawn through the wax using lines and dots. Then the exposed metal is corroded away by the usage of acid.

The plate is inked and when pressed onto a paper by Etching press a limited edition of printed images can be made. With aquatint the image is made by using fine resin powder resist to make a textured ground. The solid areas can be created by adding a stopping out liquid which also resists acid. When the ink is added the image is made up of the solid areas and the textured eaten away areas. Goya, the great artist of the 18th century, mastered aquatint and produced the renowned series of prints called "Por que fue sensible".

In my work I use one or two plates for one work and put several colors into different parts of the marked areas."

Sounds, Swimmers and the Sky

Aquatint, 2005

Emiko Aida
Barking to the Sky
copyright Emiko Aida

On the homepage of Emiko Aida you can admire different series of art prints grouped by themes of Echoes, Sounds, Swimmers and Sky Images.

It is a pure pleasure to view them. They are beautiful, full of wit and in a certain way typical Japanese.

The images on this web site are the property of the artist(s) and or the artelino GmbH and/or a third company/institution.  Reproduction, public display and any commercial use of these images, in whole or in part, require the expressed written consent of the artist(s) and/or the artelino GmbH. .