Collection: Rica Bando

About the Artist 

Rica Bando was born in Tokyo, Japan and moved to New York City in 1984. She studied lithographic printing at the Art Student’s League of New York and sculpting at the New York Academy of Arts.  Currently, she is working in a studio located in Dumbo, Brooklyn.  Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows in the United States and in Japan. Collections of her work are held at The New York Public Library, the Hunterdon Museum of Art, and others.  She is a member of The Society of American Graphic Artists

Statement

I am a printer, specializing in lithography.

Lithography is a 200 year old printing technique, invented in Germany. Unlike the etching or engraving on metal plates, it is a planographic printing process based on the resistance of water to grease. An image is drawn on a limestone or on an aluminum plate with a greasy substance, such as a crayon or ink. Then, the stone or plate is etched with acid to stabilize the image. After dampening the surface with water, printing ink adheres only on the image area. When the matrix is run through a press with a sheet of paper, the inked surface is transferred.

The fluid, spontaneous strokes that appear in lithography because of the grain of stones or aluminum plates.

To the printer, it’s more than a respected printing technique. Beyond technique, the successful work of art is a fortuitous marriage of idea, image, and process.

My work is mostly representational. Some of my work is abstract, such as images of floating lights in silent space, a frozen landscape, or the view beyond window with rain drops.

Either abstract or representational, I aim to depict the atmosphere of the confined space focusing on naturally composed and naturally existing object.

This is important to me as an artist because I hope that my work becomes a window of healing to calm one’s mind.