{"id":29113,"date":"2024-02-23T00:35:11","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T07:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/local-artist-to-host-art-gallery-with-japanese-style-art-until-march-31\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:49:08","slug":"local-artist-to-host-art-gallery-with-japanese-style-art-until-march-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/local-artist-to-host-art-gallery-with-japanese-style-art-until-march-31\/","title":{"rendered":"Local artist to host art gallery with Japanese-style art until March 31"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Amy
Amy Grogan does Japanese-style block print art. (Amy Grogan\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Local artist Amy Grogan, who specializes in the Japanese-style art of block printing, will host an art gallery at the Cortez Cultural Center through March 31.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a show highlighting my traditional block prints of the Southwestern landscape. It is a lovely show of 20 limited edition, reduction prints that I hand-carved and printed over the past two years,\u201d Grogan said.<\/p>\n

Block printing, which falls under the art category of printmaking, is a Japanese art technique that is just starting to make waves in the art world again, according to Grogan, who graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago with a bachelor\u2019s degree in 1988.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a whole tradition of it in Japan thousands of years ago, but it initially started in China, and the Europeans have a big history of it too, just with different paper,\u201d Grogan said.<\/p>\n

\"Art
Art by Amy Grogan. (Amy Grogan\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

For the art show, which is \u201cLandscapes from the Heart: An Artist\u2019s Connection to the Southwest Landscapes Grogan created a group of 20 landscape portraits that are inspired by Southwest Colorado. While traditional Japanese block printing is water-based ink, Grogan said she prefers to use oil-based paints for her printing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the richness and luminosity of oil-based ink,\u201d Grogan said. \u201cI\u2019m just trained that way, so I just stuck with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was only in the past 10 or so years that Grogan really began studying and practicing block printing as her art medium of choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did pastels during this period of doing block printing, but in the last 10 years I solely concentrated on block printing solely,\u201d Grogan said.<\/p>\n

The type of printing Grogan utilizes is called reductive block printing, and it involves layering colors on a carved block to achieve the desired effect.<\/p>\n