“What a wonderful event…celebrating printmaking! So excited to participate in Mini Print Wales”
Born and raised in New Delhi, India, Vinita Voogd is an accomplished artist and printmaker currently living and working in California, USA. She has conducted many workshops, exhibits, art talks and demonstrations at Swansea Print Workshop, and printmaking is a medium she has been teaching, studying and practising for over 40 years.
Having met her American/Dutch husband in India before moving to California in 1981, she has continued to travel throughout her career. This includes trips to Japan, France, India, Nepal and Thailand, where she has collected the unique handmade papers that form and inspire much of her work.
“I draw inspiration from the beauty of the Pacific, the rolling vineyards of France, the patches of tulip farms in Holland, from the intensity and colours of India, and the urban and suburban landscapes of California… I cut, scratch, adhere, mould and manipulate materials onto my plates without conventional limitations.” – Vinita Voogd.
Vinita taught at Saddleback College and Golden West College in California for 19 years, where she mentored in all levels of printmaking. In addition to her long career of teaching, she completed an art residency in Venice, Italy in 2013 and another in Paris, France in 2019. She continues to exhibit and teach printmaking at the Festival of Art at Laguna Beach California, as well as giving lectures, presentations and demonstrations all across California.
In much of Vinita’s work, she practises the printmaking technique of Chine-Colle. This form of collaging is a simple yet effective method of placing pieces of cut or torn coloured paper into position on the inked plate before printing the paper and image together. She teaches this medium using alternative non-traditional plates that are economical for students, since everyday materials are used instead of traditional relief plates. The results are playful and effective, allowing for a unique combination of textures, colours and patterns.
Vinita continues to practise art at her home studio in Mission Viejo and regularly exhibits her works in various galleries, solo and group collectives. She is a current board member and Vice President at Laguna Outreach Art Education, board secretary for the Los Angeles Printmaking Society Foundation and a continuing member of the Festival of Art. Her work has been sold throughout the US and abroad.
“My art strives to examine the power of colour, line, pattern and texture using lyrical gestural movement, connecting childhood, family and travel as subliminal influences. ” – Vinita Voogd
Vinita works with collagraph and selections of wonderful traditional pattened papers to create collagraphs with Chîne collé. Overprinting with colour builds up magnificent textural surfaces
She also works with three colour monotypes, sometimes on a very large scale. These are one-off prints and are produced by printing a series of process colour monotypes one on top of another, cyan, magenta and yellow.
