Land Portraits | catherine-aiello

Land Portraits
(2017-present)

This project has evolved over the years to its current state as a series of reduction woodcut prints, which I plan to turn into wall-mounted installations incorporating the print, the remaining woodblock, and other three dimensional elements.

Each large piece is a kind of portrait created in collaboration with its subject (or in the case of The Sturdy Child, myself) reflecting on relationships to the land and family that formed them. Each image serves as a kind of devotional piece focused on the personal, emotional or spiritual strength or connection the subject desires. I have also begun building out the constellation of this project with smaller woodcut prints that incorporate elements from the larger portraits and reimagine their stories in relation to each other.

A woodcut pint with a black and white oval border showing inset scenes of the natural world. In the center is a round image (in color) depicting a small child in winter clothes standing alone in a snowy field.

A woodcut print with a black and white house shape framing the central image. Set into the house shape are images of plants, the moon and quilt patterns. In the center is a color image of an androgynous person standing in a field with a hoe. There is dirt spilling out at the bottom of the image.

Woodcut print with an irregularly shaped black and white border showing rocks buried in the soil. IN the center is an oval shaped image of a female giant sleeping in a valley with three small birds flying overhead.

oval shaped black and white design showing two speech bubble shapes with landscapes in them and connected by white dotted lines. The skies in each landscape are colored- one is blue and one is orangey-pink, as if sunset or sunrise.

An image with a black and white irregularly shaped border containing a coyote standing on a large rock and looking down as if sniffing another small rock. The bottom half of the image shows a cross section of the earth and rocks.

Land Portraits (2017-present)

Land Portraits
(2017-present)