Literature

Durham Press is proud to announce Welcome Series: Margaritas, a woodblock and screenprint edition with artist Hurvin Anderson’s. The print, which measures 38 by 58 5/8 inches, combines 71 woodblock relief and 27 screenprint impressions. It is published in an edition of 30.

Margaritas further explores the imagery from Anderson’s previous Welcome Series paintings and prints. In these works, British-born Anderson depicts scenes from the Caribbean, including his parent’s home country Jamaica, and Trinidad where he held a residency in 2002. The series is unified by the motif of security gates, nearly ubiquitous devices used to protect homes and businesses on these islands. For Anderson, these gates convey both physical and emotional distance – a feeling of living between two places, of returning to a “homeland” as not only a stranger, but a foreigner.

Though his work often returns to the same locations and scenes, Anderson reveals different imagery and techniques with each iteration. Margaritas recalls his 2011 print Welcome Series: Black and White, but the incorporation of color and new screenprint and woodblock elements drastically alter the scene. The suggested oscillation of a fan imparts a sense of movement, the receding lines of the bar deepen the illusion of space, and the numerous colors and rich textures allure the viewer. Nevertheless, the security gate's geometric pattern interrupts the landscape and makes it inaccessible. Through a mastery of both silkscreen and relief printing, Anderson expresses these tensions between desire and restriction as well as abstraction and figuration. Margaritas displays many of the motifs of Anderson’s past works, while also demonstrating his ability to integrate two mediums to create stunning, innovative art.