STATEMENT
In my artmaking I stress recycling – older work, prints and paintings on paper become substrates for collages or cut and torn as marks and shapes. The images and objects chosen have symbolic and emotional content, reusing and valuing the past, the forgotten, the unsuccessful. Prints combined with paint become collages, selected by color, detail and pattern. A recent move to Portugal forced me to make difficult decisions about the work I’ve created over many decades. Many of these were brought with me in the form of scraps to be used for future pieces. I’m pleased to include a history of artmaking in each collage I create.
BIOGRAPHY
Cynthia Back was born in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. and currently resides in Portugal. Cynthia earned a BFA at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and a post-graduate certificate at St. Martin’s School of Art in London, England. Cynthia has exhibited widely both in the U.S. and internationally. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including grants from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation; residencies and fellowships to The Studios at Key West, The Artists Centre Dale, Norway, The Women’s Studio Workshop, Blue Mountain Center, Acadia National Park, The Ballinglen Arts Foundation Ltd., Ireland, Fundación Valparaiso, Spain, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, The Cill Rialaig Project, Ireland, and The MacDowell Colony. Her work is included in private and corporate collections including The Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Newark Public Library, the Free Library of Philadelphia, The New-York Historical Society, and The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Cynthia Back’s Website
