Chinese Woodcuts
Contemporary Woodblock Prints from Puerh, South West China

A unique exhibition of 30 woodcuts by 10 artists from Puerh goes on show in the Upper Gallery of The Lightbox this November. Puerh (known sometimes as Simao) is a small town in Yunnan close to the Thai and Burmese borders and is most famous for its tea, but perhaps this is soon to change...

The technique of woodblock printing has a long history in China. The British Library’s earliest dated, printed, illustrated book, the Chinese Diamond Sutra of AD 868 was printed from woodblocks. In the second half of the 20^th century woodblock printing dominated the field of printmaking in the printmaking departments of art academies across China which began to open in the 1950’s.
In the post-war period, contemporary printmaking came to be symbolic of the merging of traditional and revolutionary ideas.  After the foundation of the People’s Republic in 1949 printmaking became an important form of fine art which is still taught in Chinese art schools and practiced by many artists.  The city of Puerh in the south of China, is home to a group of artists who are leading the development of the technique of reduction woodblock printing. 

“Reduction woodblock printing”, which is how the prints on display at The Lightbox have been made, involves cutting the design into a single block of wood, printing using oil-based inks, then repeatedly re-cutting and reprinting with the same block over and over, building up layers of different colour.  Sometimes around 20 prints are needed to create a single image.  The resulting prints are dramatic, intricate, richly textured and vibrantly coloured - very different from the black and white prints of traditional English woodcuts.  The technique is said to have been first invented by Picasso, however it was probably an issue of cost that was the major factor in the development of the technique in Puerh as using one block is clearly less expensive than using five.

The exhibition has been initiated by Josie Reed, Director and owner of the Chapel Row Gallery, Bath, who has been working with The Lightbox Exhibitions Manger, Michael Regan, to put the exhibition together. Her inspiration for collating the collection of work came from a visit to the first comprehensive show of contemporary reduction woodblock prints at the Shanghai Art Museum (Shanghai, China) in 2007. She explained how first seeing the work had excited her and resulted in her not only buying some of the artists work, but going to visit them in their home town of Puerh. By doing this she was able to see the artists at work and was introduced to a wider group of woodblock artists all working and influencing each other in a close-knit artistic community.

“This exhibition at The Lightbox is such a great opportunity for more people to get to know this extraordinary group of artists. These people work in very remote environments and it is wonderful for the public to be able to come and enjoy and learn about their work as I have done.” Josie Reed