Cynthia Back

Focused on her immediate surroundings, Cynthia Back (American, lives Portugal) uses both natural and urban environments as subject matter. These attract her eye for pattern, color, light and angles, but also for their layers of meaning, both environmental and metaphorical. Back moved to Portugal from Philadelphia in December 2020, opening up a whole new world to her at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown. The initial impressions of her adopted country were almost exclusively based upon what was immediately visible; that being landscape and architecture. Daily walks contribute to her inspiration, seeing and observing changes of light, season, and deciphering meaning from her subjects.

Carving wood to portray wood, Back creates reduction prints and black and white woodcuts. She enjoys the discipline of the reduction relief printmaking process and the surprises which come with each layering of color. The physicality of carving woodblocks, rolling ink, and the repetition of printing become meditative. Each print has from 10 to 25 colors, in opaque and transparent form, and acquires a physicality of layers.

Back has studied at both St. Martin's School of Art and Wimbledon School of Art, both in London, and received her BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She has had numerous shows throughout Pennsylvania and New York including a solo show at Villanova University Art Gallery and inclusion in the North American Print Biennial, Boston, MA. Her work is in numerous public collections including The Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA; The Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Museum of Modern Art/Franklin Furnace Artist Book Collection, New York, NY; The New York Historical Society and The New York Public Library, New York, NY.