Flatbed File No. 4 "Poza" by Liz Ward

“Poza” by Liz Ward is our featured Flatbed File of the week.

Liz Ward (born 1959, Lafayette, Louisiana) is a painter and printmaker, working primarily with watercolor and intaglio. She is known for her incredible ability to capture incremental elements of the natural world. Drawing inspiration from glaciers, plant forms, and other manifestations of natural processes and materials, she translates them into highly detailed and subtly nuanced renderings. Ward first came to Flatbed in the summer of 2000, when she developed a series of five intaglio prints titled “Increments Suite”. During this time she created her captivating print “Poza”.

Like the other prints included in “Increments Suite”, “Poza” was created using custom-made Kitakata paper. The paper itself is slightly green, and the print was made using a staged aquatint. It depicts a globular amorphous shape made up of gradient aqua-colored rings on a flat background. These concentric rings range from a very light outer ring to a densely pigmented center. Robert Brown, a printer at Flatbed then, assisted in developing the specific process used to create the twenty-three concentric rings in “Poza”. Because of the nature of the staged aquatint, the timing in this process was very important and needed to be meticulously planned and practiced to create the delicate gradient quality of the print. Once the process was perfected he and Ward worked together on each print to bring “Poza” to life. Though the process used to make this print was laborious, the result is a deeply serene image. Ward was inspired by a hot spring in Mexico when creating “Poza”, but the work itself also looks similar to a number of organic objects, including a polished agate. Like much of Ward's work, “Poza” has the natural qualities of an organic object while also capturing the visual sensuality of a nonobjective painting.

LIZ WARD
“Poza” 
2001
Aquatint
Image Size: 24 X 18 in.
Sheet Size: 38 X 25.5 in.

Isabell Burnette, 2023.